A BBC expert has demolished Donald Trump’s claim that the Iranian leadership is in crisis and desperate for a deal to end the war.

The US president said on Thursday that the regime in Tehran “is in turmoil”.

Speaking in the Oval Office he said: “I want to make the best deal. I could make a deal right now.”

But Lyse Doucet, the BBC’s corporation’s chief international correspondent, insisted Trump was wrong.

She told Radio 4′s Today programme: “The general assessment is very much not the one that President Trump is presenting, saying that the leadership is in turmoil [and] he’s waiting for them to have a unified position.

“I think the most experienced Iran watchers would say that there’s always been fierce debate within the Iranian system between those who are regarded as pragmatists and those who are regarded as the hardliners.

“But at the very top, on the issues which matter, and that includes the nuclear programme, the fate of the Strait of Hormuz, there is consensus on how they want to deal with the United States, what are their red lines.”

Doucet insisted that the current ceasefire in the war – which Trump extended earlier this week – does not indicate that a deal is close.

She said: “Both sides are indicating that they are not in a rush to make a deal, both sides are saying that they are not going to back down.

“That is bad news for those that want a deal, and certainly bad news for everyone everywhere who are affected by this standoff.”

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Slovenia’s national broadcaster has announced plans to honour Palestinian artists rather than airing this year’s Eurovision Song Contest.

Last year, Slovenia was one of five countries to announce it was withdrawing from Eurovision due to the decision to invite Israel back to the competition, despite the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.

“As a public service broadcaster, RTV Slovenia is committed to upholding ethical principles and expects that equal rules and standards apply to all EBU members and all participating countries,” the Slovenian broadcaster said at the time.

On Thursday, RTVSLO’s director told AP: “We will not be broadcasting the Eurovision Song Contest. We will be airing the film series Voices of Palestine, featuring Palestinian documentaries and feature films.”

After the news that Israel would be competing at Eurovision 2026 – amid widespread calls for them to be banned, similar to how Russia was expelled from the contest in 2022 after the invasion of Ukraine – The Netherlands became the first country to withdraw in solidarity with Palestine, followed by Spain, Ireland and Slovenia. Iceland then did the same a week later.

While Ireland and Spain have already indicated that they will not be airing Eurovision 2026 on their respective national broadcasters, The Netherlands and Iceland will still show it, despite not taking part.

Eurovision’s reigning champion JJ said shortly after his victory for Austria in May 2025 that he supports calls for Israel to be banned from competing, echoing comments made weeks earlier by his predecessor, Switzerland’s Nemo, during an interview with HuffPost UK.

In the run-up to last year’s live final, a host of musicians and performers associated with Eurovision – including multiple former winners – shared an open letter calling for Israel to be removed from the contest.

An additional open letter was shared by the campaign group No Music For Genocide earlier this week, co-signed by numerous prolific musicians who are calling for a boycott of the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest.

The director of the Michael Jackson documentary Leaving Neverland has opened up about the new biopic about the singer.

Filmmaker Dan Reed got the whole world talking in 2019 with his two-part doc, which explored the multiple allegations of child sexual abuse made against the Thriller musician in his lifetime.

During a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Reed was asked about the new movie Michael, which has already been panned by critics, not least because it ends in the late 1980s, meaning the accusations levelled at Jackson are never addressed in the movie.

The Emmy winner also spoke about Michael director Antoine Fuqua’s assertion to the New Yorker that “sometimes people do some nasty things for some money” when asked for his own take on the allegations.

“For Antoine Fuqua to accuse people of gold digging is kind of ironic,” Reed responded. “It seems to me all the people involved in this movie are just making bank.”

He continued: “How can you tell an authentic story about Michael Jackson without ever mentioning the fact that he was seriously accused of being a child molester? I just don’t really see it.

“If anyone’s making money, it’s Michael Jackson’s estate and the people who worked on this biographical picture. Wade [Robson] and James [Safechuck], the protagonists of Leaving Neverland, have never made a cent from their accusations. People don’t seem to understand: If you bring a lawsuit, you don’t get any money until you win in court. And when you win in court, that means you’ve proved your case, right?”

Leaving Neverland premiered on the US broadcaster HBO, before a shortened version aired on Channel 4 on this side of the Atlantic.

Years after Leaving Neverland’s debut, the Jackson estate raised a legal complaint with HBO over a previous contract agreement relating to a Michael Jackson concert broadcast from the early 1990s, which included a “non-disparagement clause”.

As a result, the film was removed from HBO’s catalogue, and is currently not available to watch anywhere, with Reed noting that they still hold the licence for his project until 2029.

Reed later worked on a follow-up, Leaving Neverland II, which was made without HBO’s involvement, also released to Channel 4 in the UK, while overseas, it premiered on YouTube.

Bad news for anyone who loves Pilates: Trad men have discovered the exercise and taken a liking to the “Pilates girl”.

Pilates – a low-impact, full-body movement method focused on core strength, control, alignment and breath – has surged in popularity in the past few years, especially among women.

The celebrity-favourite workout can be done on a mat at home or with a specialised machine that uses springs and pulleys for resistance. Those who practice it swear by its ability to tone the body and reduce stress.

But Pilates also has a certain reputation it can’t seem to shake: People think it’s for rich white women. Like yoga before it – the last “It” girl exercise of this scale – the practice isn’t inherently exclusionary, but the way it’s marketed tends to centre around a narrow body ideal and women of a certain tax bracket. An average 60-minute group class typically costs $30 to $65.

Then there’s the “look” it gives you. Instead of focusing on bulk, regularly practicing Pilates achieves a toned, lean and elongated body. You build strength, not muscle mass.

All of this has made it appealing to a certain type of man, who, as The 19th recently reported, expects their partners to devote hours to the workout.

“If your girl goes to Pilates, wife her up immediately,” online business entrepreneur Christian Bonnier said in a recent viral Instagram Reel, deeming the exercise “wholesome” and “the biggest green flag ever for a girl”.

“If your girl goes to Pilates, she’s probably staying in on the weekends so she can get up early and go to a Solidcore or BodyRok class,” he says in the clip. “And she’s going to come back from the Pilates class in a great mood because she went with her friends and didn’t get hit on by any creepy guys and got a great workout in.”

In another video, which racked up 564,000 views, Bonnier declares, “Bring back stay-at-home Pilates wives.” He’s not buying that women find greater fulfilment in a 9-to-5 job rather than staying home with their kids – but if they are working, it should be a job that leaves ample time to “tan by the pool, go to Pilates, go to farmers markets in a sundress and raise a family”.

Then there’s the Pilates-girl-loving bros of reality television. During the most recent season of Netflix’s popular dating show Love is Blind, contestant Chris Fusco faced backlash online for breaking up with fiancée Jessica Barrett in part because she wasn’t the type to do Pilates every day.

“Love Is Blind, as Long as Love Does Pilates,” the Atlantic joked in an article about the debacle between Barrett, an infectious disease doctor, and Fusco, an account executive and Army National Guard member.

Then last month, The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives star Jessi Draper alleged that her estranged husband, Jordan Ngatikaura, told her he wanted her to do Pilates “every single day” – a request she said he tied to his want for a more traditional marriage. “He said, ‘I think I believe in traditional gender roles and I want to be more in my masculine and I want you to be more in your feminine,’” Draper said on the Call Her Daddy podcast.

How did Pilates – an exercise that has been around since the 1920s – get co-opted by gym bros with a trad wife complex? Pilates instructors have some theories.

“Pilates has a certain visual language such as long lines, control and softness that some men interpret as ‘feminine,’ ‘disciplined’ or ‘low-risk.’ That’s where the ‘green flag’ talk is coming from. But that’s projection, not reality,” said Sabrina Seymore, the owner and lead Instructor at Prevailing Pilates, the first Black-owned Pilates studio in North Carolina.

What’s happening now “feels like a mix of aesthetic culture, social media and old-school gender expectations,” Seymore told HuffPost.

It’s a strange appropriation, though, she said, because Pilates was never designed to signal anything about a woman’s desirability or “values.”

“It’s a system for strength, control, rehabilitation and full-body awareness for everyone,” she said.

Joseph Pilates, a German gymnast and physical trainer, developed the system, originally called Contrology, while interned in British camps during World War I. Lacking proper equipment, Pilates improvised by attaching bedsprings to hospital bed frames. These makeshift devices allowed bedridden patients to perform resistance exercises, forming the blueprint for modern Pilates machines like the trapeze table and reformer.

Years later in the U.S., Kathleen Stanford Grant, a Black classical ballet dancer, played a pivotal role in establishing the foundation of the workout here.

For Seymore, it’s off-putting to see the restorative exercise she loves so much turned into a personality trait or a dating filter for “trad” men. It flattens women who practice Pilates into a lifestyle aesthetic, she said, and co-opts wellness into a language of control in a subtle, insidious way.

“Personally, I don’t feel offended so much as protective of the practice,” she said. “Because Pilates, at its best, is about helping people feel strong, capable and at home in their bodies, not performing a specific kind of femininity for approval.”

Zhane Dadson, a Pilates instructor in Philadelphia who goes by Coach Zha online, feels similarly.

“The women I see in Pilates are rebuilding themselves,” she told HuffPost. “It’s not about fitting into someone else’s idea of desirable. Pilates has always been about choosing yourself. Not being chosen.”

Mariel Barnes is an assistant professor of public affairs at the University of Wisconsin whose research examines the manosphere and its influence on U.S. politics. She isn’t surprised that this type of man gravitates toward women who do Pilates (or at least their weirdly retrograde image of women who do Pilates).

“Manosphere types generally want someone who’s fit, slim, generally white and also generally young. It’s why they talk about women hitting ‘the wall,’” Barnes told HuffPost. (“The wall” is a Red Pill talking point for the age – usually put at around 30 – when they believe women lose their beauty, sexual appeal and high dating value.)

The manosphere likes to argue that feminism has ruined Western women, making them too demanding, pushy and assertive. It’s the reason they prefer Eastern European and Southeast Asian women; they consider such women more compliant and less influenced by feminism.

“Similarly, I think there’s this idea that women who do Pilates are perhaps a little bit softer or are into what young people are now calling the ‘soft life,’” Barnes said.

“Soft life” is just the latest right-wing pipeline for Gen Z women. On TikTok, creators promote rejecting hustle culture – and oftentimes work altogether – while encouraging women to pursue a life of ease and husband-provided luxury.

One video from such a creator shows the woman grocery shopping, with the caption, “You woke up one day and realised you’re the Whole Foods-shopping, vacationing in Europe, Pilates-going wife.”

This genre of influencers is the perfect companion to the trad husbands of the manosphere, because the women are willing to let men be in charge while they run the household. Pilates and other “soft life” trappings are the latest window dressing for drawing women into the trad wife lifestyle.

“‘Pilates girl’ is almost a dog whistle now,” Barnes said. “Because if the manosphere were to say what they really wanted in a woman, it would come across very badly.”

Saying you want a “Pilates girl” who values her health and staying fit sounds much better than saying, I need full control in the relationship and I’m superficial and looks are the be-all, end-all for me, Barnes said.

The women of colour Pilates instructors we talked to aren’t going to give their beloved exercise over to manosphere-adjacent types so easily, though.

“The Pilates I know is adaptive, intuitive and rooted in making things work with what you have,” said Tay Milburn, the owner and lead instructor at Fringe Pilates in Brooklyn, New York.

When Milburn sees Pilates reduced to whether it makes someone look “lean” or fit a certain aesthetic, it tells her that those people don’t actually understand the method.

“They’re engaging with it as an outcome for the male gaze, not as a wellness practice,” she said. “I think the current conversation is less about what Pilates actually is and more about how it’s been marketed. At its core, Pilates is a tool for connection, healing and strength.”

They’re intent on making the exercise more welcoming, too.

“It’s true that it has had a reputation as being for white women,” said Sonja R. Price Herbert, a Pilates instructor and founder of Black Girl Pilates, a space where Black female instructors can network.

“When I started Black Girl Pilates in 2017, there was more intimidation felt due to the lack of Black instructors,” she told HuffPost. “Because of our advocacy and because of Black instructors, there are more safe spaces for all of us.”

The Star Wars series The Acolyte is enjoying an unexpected resurgence, almost two years after Disney made the decision not to renew the show.

In 2024, The Acolyte premiered on the streaming platform Disney+, starring Amandla Stenberg as twin sisters Osha and Mae, leading a cast that also included the likes of Manny Jacincto, Jodie Turner-Smith and Squid Game’s Lee Jung-jae.

Regrettably, the show’s diverse casting was met with a backlash from more narrow-minded, far-right members of the Star Wars fandom, resulting in it being “review bombed”.

Eventually, it was cancelled by Disney after one season.

However, fans have spotted in recent days that it has been enjoying an impromptu renaissance in recent history, to the point it’s made its way into Disney+’s list of most-watched shows right now.

In the summer of 2024, Amandla had some thoughts to get off their chest about the show’s cancellation, lamenting the “rampage of vitriol”, “hyper-conservative bigotry” and “prejudiced hatred and hateful language” levelled against them and their co-stars.

While Amandla said they feel “very sad about the show being cancelled”, they also insisted it had been “an honour” to be part of the Star Wars universe, particularly as a long-time sci-fi fan, and praised fans of The Acolyte who did their best to support for the show.

Months later, Amandla’s co-star Jodie Turner-Smith admitted she was not impressed with the way Disney handled the conservative backlash against The Acolyte.

“They’ve got to stop doing this thing where they don’t say anything when people are getting fucking dog-piled on the internet with racism and bullshit,” Jodie said. “It’s just not fair to not say anything. It’s really unfair.”

Her comments were similar to quotes from Star Wars actor John Boyega, who has also been critical of Disney since his time playing Finn in the reboot trilogy came to an end.

The Acolyte is available to stream on Disney+ now.

Donald Trump has threatened to slap extra tariffs on UK goods unless the government drops its plans for a digital services tax on tech giants.

The US president accused the government of “targeting American companies” and said they “better be careful” or face the consequences.

Ministers hope to raise around £5 billion over the next five years from the digital services tax, which imposes a 2% levy on the revenues of search engines, social media services and online marketplaces operating in the UK.

The White House has previously lobbied the government to reduce or abolish the tax as part of trade discussions between America and Britain.

Asked about the tax on Thursday, Trump accused the UK of trying to “make an easy buck” from American tech firms.

He said: “We don’t like it when they target American companies, because basically you’re talking about our great American companies.

“Whether we like those companies or don’t like them, they’re American companies. They’re top companies in the world.

“We’ve been looking at it. The UK did it, a couple of other people did it. They think they’re gonna make an easy buck, that’s why they’ve all taken advantage of our country.

“We can meet that very easily by just putting a big tariff on the UK, so they better be careful. If they don’t drop the tax, we’ll probably put a big tariff on the UK.

“They shouldn’t be doing that. It’s really targeting great companies, but they’re our companies. It’s like us targeting their companies, which we could do very easily.

“But you don’t have great companies like that. It’s not fair. I have an obligation to protect our companies – that’s how they became great.”

A spokesman for Keir Starmer hit back at the president and insisted the government’s policy would not change.

He said: “It is a hugely important tax in making sure that those businesses continue to pay their fair share. It is a fair and proportionate approach to taxing business activities in the UK.”

Trump’s comments, which come ahead of a state visit to America next week by King Charles, are further evidence of the decline in relations between the two governments in Washington and London.

The president is furious at the prime minister’s refusal to support the war in Iran, and has repeatedly criticised the prime minister since the conflict began nearly two months ago.

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