The special counsel investigating President Biden said in a report released on Thursday that he had decided not to seek prosecution of Mr. Biden over his handling of classified material after leaving the vice presidency in early 2017, but had found evidence that Mr. Biden willfully retained and disclosed some sensitive material.
The report said that Mr. Biden had left the White House after his vice presidency with classified documents about Afghanistan and notebooks with handwritten entries “implicating sensitive intelligence sources and methods” taken from internal White House briefings.
Robert K. Hur, the special counsel, said in his report that Mr. Biden had shared the notebooks with a ghostwriter who helped him on his 2017 memoir, “Promise Me, Dad.”
Mr. Hur, a former Trump Justice Department official appointed by Attorney General Merrick B. Garland in January 2023 to lead the inquiry after classified files were found in the garage and living areas of Mr. Biden’s home in Delaware and his former office in Washington, said his decision not to pursue criminal charges would have been the same even if Justice Department policy did not preclude indicting a sitting president.
“We conclude that the evidence does not establish Mr. Biden’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,” wrote Mr. Hur.
Mr. Hur cited Mr. Biden’s cooperation with investigators, in stark contrast with former President Donald J. Trump’s behavior when documents were discovered at his resort in Florida, as one of the factors in his decision not to bring charges.
While Mr. Hur decided not to prosecute Mr. Biden, his reasons for doing so are likely to raise new questions about the president’s conduct and his mental state.
It will also provide potent new political arguments for Mr. Trump in his battle to discredit the department over its far more serious investigation into his retention of classified materials, which resulted in criminal charges last summer.
In a conversation recorded at a rented property in Virginia in February 2017 — a month after he left office — Mr. Biden told his ghostwriter he had “just found all the classified stuff downstairs.”
Mr. Hur said that exchange was the strongest basis for a prosecution he had found, but that a jury was unlikely to convict Mr. Biden, given the fact that he had grown accustomed to legally retaining documents as vice president, might have not fully adjusted to the new restrictions and believed he had the right to keep them — based on President Reagan’s retention of similar materials.
That the document was discovered in his Delaware garage in a “badly damaged box surrounded by household detritus” indicated he simply may have forgotten he had it over the years, rather than intentionally breaking the law, Mr. Hur concluded.
Another reason he chose not to prosecute Mr. Biden was even less flattering. Mr. Hur cited Mr. Biden’s poor recollection of events during an interview with prosecutors last fall that lasted two days.
“Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview with him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory,” Mr. Hur wrote.
It would be difficult to convince a jury after Mr. Biden left office that “a former president well into his eighties” was guilty of a felony that “requires a mental state of willfulness.”
If you like demanding, bite-sized platformers, I have great news for you! Bzzzt is a fun and fresh entry that evokes really popular games in the genre, such as Celeste and Super Meat Boy. What’s more, we are giving out keys as part of IGN Plus. WOOHOO!
IGN Plus Monthly Game: Bzzzt
Bzzzt is a fast-paced platformer from solo developer Karel Matejka (also known as KO.DLL). who has worked on the game alone for four years. They crafted every element of the game except the (very catchy) music, which was deftly made by their long-time friend Martin Linda. According to Karel, Bzzzt is inspired by a litany of games, including Manic Miner, Mario, Oddworld, Mega Man, VVVVVV, Shovel Knight, Geometry Dash, Hollow Knight, and more.
From where I’m sitting, it certainly evokes Celeste and Super Meat Boy, too, although unlike Super Meat Boy, there are several difficulty settings which let you make up to three mistakes before needing to start the bite-sized stage over.
Bzzzt Developer Interview – Karel Matejka (Bzzzt Sole Developer)
For this interview, I corresponded with Karel Matejka about their solo-developed game Bzzzt, retro games that inspire them, taking on solo game development, and more.
I hope you enjoy the game, and this interview. Cheers!
Brian: I understand that bringing back the old-school feel and love of retro games inspired the creation of Bzzzt. (It reminds me of Super Meat Boy with a dash of Celeste, among other things)
Karel: I was always fascinated by the old 8-bit games. As a kid, I was amazed by a new and fresh kind of entertainment I had never seen before. It was the main reason why I started making games by myself. After more than 30 years in the game industry, working on big titles, I decided to “time-travel” back to the eighties, become an indie developer, and see if I could make a game reflecting that nostalgic feeling without any old computers’ limits. I wanted to pay tribute to games I grew up on but with fresh design approaches, perfectly tight controls, rainbow art, high-frequency animations, and supersonic-speed gameplay.
I did not see the reason for creating “just another” retro game with loose controls… platforming full of frustration, and stuttering camera movement – that’s why I also searched for inspiration in modern games. Celeste has remarkably polished controls and a system of helping players. Super Meat Boy inspired me to make the gameplay more frenetic, and Cuphead was the inspiration for the ever-changing gameplay and boss stages. The list of games which influenced Bzzzt is almost endless: Manic Miner, Mario, Oddworld, Mega Man, VVVVVV, Shovel Knight, Geometry Dash, Hollow Knight, etc.
Bzzzt – Slideshow
Brian: What makes the short stages / speedrunning style so compelling, as a developer?
Karel: I tried to build longer stages during playtesting, but this level design was too stressful for players. So, I decided to create shorter stages with perfectly synchronized traps and keep surprising players with new mechanics at every step – that was finally the right direction for the game and the source of core fun!
The Bzzzt game is about solving fast speedrun puzzles, easily memorizing all obstacles, and performing perfect jump-dash-run sequences without worrying too much about being killed by traps or enemies. Everything is instant, satisfying, and very, very addictive. The quote, “Just one last run, and I am going to sleep”, best illustrates this game.
What are some of the team’s favorite things/elements from the games?
Karel: I play games mostly because of their story (I am a huge fan of the JRPG genre). If the game has a well-written story, I am in! Maybe that’s why I am not a big fan of the Rogue-like genre. I need some progress, and I hate losing it. I love it when developers experiment with genres. When there is something fresh, a new game mechanic or an unexpected genre twist, I enjoy it a lot.
For instance, Dave the Diver. Almost all exploration games have fishing minigames – variations that have been seen hundreds of times – and Dave the Diver team finally made fishing entertaining. Or Loop Hero. They picked a Tower Defense genre and turned its established rules inside out.
Brian: For me, the music is great and the feel of the platforming is fantastic.
Karel: I started experimenting with music when I realized that many games share animation tempo and music rhythm. In the Rayman series, there are stages that are synchronized with the music, or “dancing” flowers in Plants versus Zombies are great examples.
With Martin, we decided to make the soundtrack and animated sprites precisely this way. Players will not realize this immediately, but it’s something inside that will satisfy their senses.
Brian: I am a big fan of Easy mode’s 3 lives. Being able to scale the challenge to the players desired level is a plus in my opinion. Was there ever a discussion about a mode with infinite continues per stage, or adding slowdown, or other accessibility options, given the demands placed on the player?
Karel: Yes, we are still discussing that. I plan to add a more “relaxing” mode to the game. Many players want less challenging enemies or to enjoy the game art without being disturbed by traps too much. I have already started working on that.
Brian: The sidescrolling bullet hell section with the ship was so cool, as was the 80s synthwave music.
Karel: Initially, the idea behind the game was to pay tribute only to one specific game – the first game I played on ZX Spectrum with my brother. It was Manic Miner. But when I was coding more and more subsystems, I realized it would be an unexploited potential to use only one inspiration. So, In the end, I decided to pay tribute to more games from that era. And SHMUP, because I love that genre a lot, was the first one I decided to add there as a bonus. There are so many cultural references inside the game, and it’s up to players to discover them.
Brian: Were there any other names you considered for the game?
Karel: Haha, I did not consider other names, this one was the first. Yes, I know that the game title is a bit silly, but as everything inside the game has its own inspiration evoking ’80s/’90s, there are also a few ones behind the Bzzzt name. The first one is a game called PSSST!, which was released on ZX Spectrum in 1983. The second is Ruby Rhod’s quote from The Fifth Element, directed by my favourite director, Luc Besson. And, the last inspiration is that the name reminds me of the sound of electricity, and it has a tight connection with the main character and the electric traps used inside the game.
Brian: Any notable, interesting, or fun stories from development that you can share?
Karel: When thinking about naming characters, I decided to use my friends’ names. There is a bar in Prague called BAD TIMES with a bartender named Norbert. The funny thing is, he hates his name so much that he asked us to call him only Bert (and he can be really mad sometimes). So, I have drawn the main antagonist after him, calling him Badbert and good scientist Norbert. This way, my favourite bartender has a double role in a game and does not even know about that. Maybe Badbert character is my alter ego in the end. Who knows?
Brian: What would you tell players who are getting ready to jump in for the first time?
Karel: I hope players will have fun playing the game like I did while creating it. It was a crazy long ride, but it was worth it. Bzzzt game is not only a trip to the past; it is a record of how I remember the evolution of precision platformers from its beginning till now. Oh yes! And there are leaderboards, trophies and Steam achievements!!! 🙂 And if you are still not decided, there is a free demo on Steam.
Bonus: What is one game you’ve played lately that really captured you?
Karel: Haha, I am again playing HEROES OF MIGHT AND MAGIC 3 right now. It captured me 25 years ago and can’t let me go. 🙂
What Is IGN Plus?
IGN Plus is IGN’s membership program for IGN fans and gamers. You can try it for just $1 for 30 days to see if it’s for you. As an IGN Plus member you get:
Brian Barnett writes reviews, guides, features, & more for IGN & GameSpot. You can get your fix of his antics on YouTube, Twitch, Twitter, Bluesky, & Backloggd, & check out his fantastic video game talk show, The Platformers, on Backloggd &Apple Podcasts.
Satellite images show a dramatic increase in the number of tents of displaced people in Rafah. More than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are sheltering in Rafah.
Luckily, Dr. Belkin had a list on hand and began divulging some of the skin-tightening procedures he’s given the cookbook author.
“We’ve done a little ultrasound tightening, a long time ago,” the dermatologist shared. “We did a little softwave, which is an ultrasound-based tightening device. And we’ve done a little bit of Ulthera, which is a great ultrasound-based skin-tightening that works.”
Martha also pointed out she’s undergone several body treatments, including a Fraxel laser. “My décolletage and across my chest looks so good now,” she said. “That is a combination of your work and Pilates.”
In fact, Martha reminded fans that her beauty routine is only a small portion of how she takes care of herself. She credited eating a nutritious diet, exercising regularly and practicing other healthy habits for keeping her youthful.
“I don’t think a lot about age,” she said, “but I don’t want to look my age.”
New York City, USA – Makalah Monroe works at an Outback Steakhouse in Laurel, Maryland. She is a student and the only one in her household with a car. By any account, Monroe has a full plate of responsibilities that she is working hard to keep up with. She works full-time and yet struggles to get by.
“I often leave an eight-hour shift with only about $60 in hand,” Monroe told Al Jazeera.
With credit card, phone and insurance bills piling up, her current pay is just not cutting it for her. Often, she has to decide which gets paid and what has to wait.
“I usually have to call the car and insurance companies and tell them I either need to pay late or pause payments entirely,” she added.
Monroe is like the millions of Americans whose financial situation hinges on the outcome of the US presidential election. President Joe Biden is set to focus on a number of economic wins during his first term, including record job growth, low unemployment and tumbling gas prices, among other key economic indicators that have made it evident that the US economy is on the upswing.
But the incumbent president, his Republican opponents, third-party candidates and Biden’s longshot Democratic challengers face the harsh realities of underemployment in the United States.
However, with significant economic growth, the question is: Do Americans like Monroe have a better chance for social mobility under the eventual Democratic nominee – most likely Biden – or the most likely Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump?
According to data compiled by the Economic Policy Institute, underemployment sits slightly below 7 percent – the lowest since the agency began tracking the data in 1990. When Trump left office, underemployment was at more than 14 percent. After a peak in March 2021, there has been a steady decline since.
“Since the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, unemployment has declined pretty steeply and quickly,” said Lonnie Golden, professor of economics and labour-human resources at the Pennsylvania State University.
Cost-of-living surge
While the Biden administration saw record job growth, it is not clear that the new jobs in question are well-paying sustainable jobs that meet the cost of living across the US.
“In the last year, we’ve seen an uptick in the way the Bureau of Labor Statistics measures the number of people working part-time but would prefer to be working full-time hours,” said Golden.
“These figures kind of mask the extent of underemployment for people because they’re seeking a second job for more income,” she added.
Despite the economic gains, child poverty is up 137 percent, and average rent prices have surged nationally.
According to a new report out from Zillow, the percentage of income needed to rent a median-price apartment in the US jumped by 40 percent since before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In some cities, it is even higher.
In Miami, Florida, renters need to spend 43 percent of the average income to afford a median-price rental apartment. The minimum wage in Miami is $12 an hour.
Nationally, the minimum wage’s buying power peaked in 1968 and has not kept up with the cost of living since.
According to a report by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the number of those underemployed is much higher – 33 percent among college graduates. That is because its metric considers graduates working jobs that do not require a college degree.
Amid the recovery, much of the consistent job gains were in the leisure and hospitality sector – an industry that is notorious for low wages.
“The low wage pool is what’s growing the American workforce,” Saru Jayaraman, founder of One Fair Wage, told Al Jazeera.
Jayaraman asserts that Biden, who historically is more pro-worker than his Republican challengers, could do much better strategically if he fully embraces issues about payment.
“It’s getting harder and harder to tell workers to vote for a Democrat who will raise wages when that doesn’t happen,” Jayaraman said.
However, during the last election cycle, Biden did follow through on many of his promises.
One of Biden’s first actions as president was to raise wages across the board via the Raise the Wage Act. But that did not pass as the bill was blocked by Republicans. Biden, however, was able to raise the minimum wage for all federal contractors. The US government is the nation’s biggest employer.
Biden has not acted on abolishing the subminimum wage that allows tipped workers to make a wage of only $2.13 an hour – although many states require higher direct wage amounts for tipped employees. The rest is supposed to be made up in tips – a move that is widely accepted in the food service industry and other domestic industries.
The Trump administration, however, actively tried to limit tipped wages for these same restaurant workers. The former president pushed for business owners to take control of tips and pass them along to workers as they see fit.
Proposed solutions to underemployment include a number of compounding proposals, one of which is the nonprofit One Fair Wage’s push to abolish the subminimum wage nationally.
One Fair Wages efforts have helped get wage measures on the ballot all over the country, garnering more votes than either presidential candidate.
“In 2020, more people voted for a $15 minimum wage in Florida than [the number of votes for] either Trump or Biden,” Jayaraman said.
Faults in proposed fixes
One proposed fix has been a Universal Basic Income. Americans got a taste of that in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic when the government released one-time payments. That stimulated the economy. Consumer spending surged.
In May 2020, personal spending rose 8.2 percent from the month prior. That had the same effect during the second round of government payouts. Consumer spending ticked up by more than 4 percent in the months following the second release, which was in early 2021.
However, that was one of the many reasons why inflation soared in the years following.
Printing more money means that the individual dollar is less valuable than it once was, driving up prices. Yet wages did not grow nearly fast enough.
“Only a few years ago, it used to be that one in three Americans working full time lived in poverty. We are inching closer to one in two,” Jayaraman said.
The Department of Labor for its part is taking steps to address massive shifts in the economic makeup of the US. In September, the department announced a $57m grant to expand job training programmes, including in large population centres like New York, California, Illinois and Ohio.
The move is aimed at helping those who are underemployed pivot into high-demand and expanding industries related to addressing climate change and staffing up the US’s infrastructure projects.
While the programme is expected to have widespread effects, the Labor Department says it will help about 10,000 workers.
It also comes alongside a wave of unionisation efforts across big businesses like Amazon to even small independent coffee shops. Several companies and trade have successfully lobbied for higher wages and fairer contracts.
That, however, came from empowered workers in individual sectors rather than overarching policies from Washington.
The Biden administration has been largely supportive of unions that have called for fairer contracts like the United Auto Workers, for instance.
Movement, however, is slow. Wage increases are often staggered marginally over several years. The required wage increases for federal contractors were unilaterally implemented by executive order in April 2021 – three months into Biden’s presidency. It took effect a few weeks ago.
But as Washington hypothesises over a myriad of potential solutions, people like Monroe still have rent and electricity bills piling up.
“I’m basically living paycheque to paycheque right now,” Monroe said.
No one knows exactly when Grand Theft Auto 6 will launch outside of Take-Two and Rockstar, but some people are in better positions to take guesses than others. One of those better-equipped guessers is Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot, whose job involves making business plans that account for competitors’ massive game releases. At the moment, Guillemot is expecting a GTA 6 release sometime after March 2025 – and he’s feeling pretty good about it.
During Ubisoft’s Q3 earnings call today, Guillemot was asked how Ubisoft was thinking about their upcoming games lineup now that GTA 6 has been officially announced. The asker suggested the game was expected to target the end of fiscal 2025, which for Ubisoft would mean sometime in January through March of 2025.
Guillemot responded as follows:
What we’ve seen in the past is that each time there’s a big release like GTA, there are more and more people coming back to the industry, and that helps other games to sell as well. We see it for sure. We look at this and we are really organizing things around the launch of that game, which we do not know exactly when it is going to happen. We consider it will be closer to our financial year ’26 than our financial year ’25. But what we’ve seen is that generally it’s actually positive for the market, and we did a good launch with the launch of GTA 5 first launch and GTA 5 online game, each time we were able to generate really good revenue and profit on the games we launched.
To clarify, this means Guillemot is expecting GTA 6 won’t show up until April of 2025 or later, which does fit with the official release window Take-Two gave of just “2025.” But this is notably a little later than what some have been speculating based on past remarks by Take-Two Interactive, GTA 6’s publisher. Previously, Take-Two made bold projections about “groundbreaking titles” releasing in its own fiscal 2025 (which lines up with Ubisoft’s) that would bring them to “achieve over $8 billion in net bookings,” followed by even higher results in fiscal 2026. This could mean GTA 6 has been quietly pushed back behind the scenes, but it’s also possible this prediction was never intended to be about GTA 6 in the first place, but a number of analysts took that to mean GTA 6 would be a fiscal 2025 game.
Whatever the case, everything is still speculation and we won’t know GTA 6’s release date until we’re told what it is. But if you were expecting to be able to play it first thing in 2025, you might want to temper your hopes a bit.
What’s maybe more interesting is Guillemot’s statement that a GTA 6 release will be good for Ubisoft too. It’s long been known that AAA game companies will frequently sweat over when to release games so they don’t have to compete with other major releases that might drown them out, so it’d be natural for Ubisoft to want to avoid having any of its own major releases debut around the same time as GTA 6. But Guillemot’s point that a game like GTA 6 will draw people into video games who haven’t played them in a while or even ever before is an apt one. After they get done with GTA 6, players will want something else to do, and that something might just be an Ubisoft game.
A sweeping emergency aid bill for Ukraine and Israel inched ahead in the Senate on Thursday after more than a dozen Republicans joined Democrats to move it forward, but hurdles remained as G.O.P. senators continued slow progress on the measure and fought internally about whether to kill it.
The Senate voted 67 to 32 to advance the bill, which would provide $60.1 billion for Ukraine, $14.1 billion for Israel and $10 billion in humanitarian aid for civilians in global conflicts. Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, pushed forward with the vote even though many Republicans, who voted on Wednesday to block a version of the measure that included border restrictions, were still withholding their support as they demand changes to the measure.
Many Republicans are insisting that they get the opportunity to add border restrictions to the package — despite having voted Wednesday to block a version of the legislation that included a bipartisan package of border restrictions. After Republicans huddled behind closed doors in the Capitol on Thursday morning, feuding over which changes to seek, it was still unclear whether — or when — they would be able to iron out their disputes and allow the measure to move toward a final vote.
The sluggish action on the foreign aid bill was the latest manifestation of discord that has roiled the G.O.P. and ground efforts to pass national security spending bills to a standstill. Republicans have clashed over how to address international crises without angering the leader of their party and its likely presidential nominee, former President Donald J. Trump.
Senate Republicans had initially signaled early Wednesday that they were likely to support moving forward with a clean foreign aid bill without border provisions as long as they had opportunities to propose changes, terms that Mr. Schumer agreed to in principle. Leaders on both sides were optimistic that they would have enough backing to speedily advance the measure.
But by evening, their optimism had given way to confusion, as Republicans devolved into a familiar crouch, torn between rival factions and utterly unable to make a decision about how to proceed. They spent much of Wednesday afternoon and evening squabbling over which amendments to insist on — and some argued privately they should not allow the bill to move forward at all.
Shortly after 7 p.m., Mr. Schumer sent senators home to “give our Republican colleagues the night to figure themselves out,” promising to reconvene the Senate at noon Thursday. But by Thursday morning, G.O.P. senators still had not settled on a way ahead — and it was unclear whether they would be able to resolve their differences anytime soon.
Republican senators are split, with some staunchly supportive of sending a fresh infusion of military aid to help Ukraine fight off a Russian invasion, and those on the right deeply opposed to doing so. And some G.O.P. senators who back the aid are nonetheless concerned that doing so without exacting a price from Democrats would compromise them politically in an election year, given Mr. Trump’s opposition to backing Ukraine’s war effort.
Some Republican senators are likely to back the bill regardless of whether it is changed on the floor, so long as they are given a chance to have the Senate vote on some proposed revisions. Eight Republicans — Senators Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader; Susan Collins of Maine; John Kennedy of Louisiana; Jerry Moran of Kansas; Lisa Murkowski of Alaska; Mitt Romney of Utah; Thom Tillis of North Carolina; and Todd Young of Indiana — already voted to advance the measure past an opening procedural hurdle on Wednesday. Some said they intended to keep supporting the bill.
“I’m likely going to be there on the back end of the process,” Mr. Tillis said on Thursday, adding that the Senate owed it to Ukraine — and every other country that was still supporting its war against Russia — to see the bill through. “Failing to take this up is exactly what Putin hopes happens this week, and I’m going to do everything I can to prevent it.”
But other Republicans who have championed aid to Ukraine are still withholding their support. They included Senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, John Cornyn of Texas and James Lankford of Oklahoma. Mr. Lankford spent the past four months negotiating a bipartisan deal to pair Ukraine funding with border security measures, a trade-off Republicans had demanded, only to have it rejected by Republicans on Wednesday.
They are expected to be among the senators insisting on specific amendments as a precondition for their support.
“I’m not giving up on the border,” Mr. Graham said in an interview, despite having voted earlier on Wednesday to kill the Ukraine aid and border deal.
Among the border-related amendments that had been floated by Republicans were a measure reflecting Mr. Lankford’s border deal and a more severe immigration enforcement bill that House Republicans passed last spring.
There were also talks about a bid to revoke or change the Flores settlement agreement, which sets limits on how long children can be held in detention facilities, according to Senate aides who described the discussions on the condition of anonymity because no decision had been made about whether to pursue the proposal.
Some Republican senators emerged from the party’s morning meeting on Thursday saying they also wanted amendment votes to change the foreign aid portions of the bill before committing their support.
“I’m still very focused on trying to limit the humanitarian component,” said Senator Dan Sullivan, Republican of Alaska, arguing that European countries could focus on sending economic and humanitarian aid to Ukraine while “we focus on weapons and our own industrial base.”
But other Republican senators signaled there was no amendment deal that would be enough to secure their vote.
“That’d be window dressing,” said Senator Mike Braun, Republican of Indiana. “Whenever the other side allows you to do amendments, it’s never ones they think will pass.”
Democrats also have a wish list of proposed changes to the measure. Nearly 20 Democratic senators, most of them from the left wing of the party, have signed on to an amendment that would require recipients of security aid to use weapons in accordance with U.S. law, international humanitarian law and the laws of armed conflict — and not hamper efforts to send humanitarian aid to civilians. While the measure does not specifically mention Israel, it was inspired by senators’ concerns about that country’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip running afoul of international law.
Whether any of those senators will have a chance to propose their preferred changes depends on whether the chamber can move on to the next procedural vote to advance the bill. And while some Republicans sounded hopeful that they could resume voting soon, others opposed to the legislation pledged to make the process as long and painful as possible.
“I will insist on every minute and every day of it,” said Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky. “I want to be here a week, because I want to talk about what a disaster the bill is and what a mistake it is to send our money to other countries before we fix our own problems here.”
Manchester United’s transfer policy is expected to drastically change with the introduction of INEOS, taking control of the sporting structure at Old Trafford.
Erik ten Hag will be hoping for a busy and constructive summer with his team in need of the right reinforcements to take the club forward on the pitch.
A new right-back has been touted with Inter Milan’s Denzel Dumfries a name consistently linked with the position.
However, as reported by Sport Witness, United may now face competition from a Premier League rival for the Dutchman’s signature.
Aston Villa have registered their interest in the defender who is likely to be moved on at the end of the season.
Dumfries’ contract runs out at in the summer of 2025 and Inter will be hoping to cash in on the player to recoup the €12.5 million paid to PSV in 2021.
With Villa enjoying a fine season under Unai Emery, they will be looking to continue their progress by having a productive summer window.
Dumfries has been earmarked as the perfect player to add experience and quality to their squad but Ten Hag will be hoping his compatriot holds out for a move to Manchester.
Diogo Dalot and Aaron Wan-Bissaka currently share right-back responsibilities Old Trafford but rumours on an upgrade have been rife since Ten Hag’s arrival.
However, with other areas of the pitch requiring more urgent surgery, the pair have soldiered on to save United funds in the market.
No official bids have gone in from either club for Dumfries but INEOS will no doubt be doing their due diligence on targets they will be aiming for in the summer.
United and Villa go face-to-face on the field this coming Sunday, in what is a crunch game for the top four places in the Premier League this season.
“Shawn Carter is one of the greatest men I know and his words ring so loud to me,” she told Entertainment Tonight Feb. 6. “I couldn’t be more proud of him.”
Kelly, who made up one-third of Destiny’s Child with Beyoncé and Michelle Williams, emphasized the influence of the “Empire State of Mind” rapper’s speech.
“I’m just really happy for a lot of things that he said,” the 42-year-old continued. “I think that he made a lot of artists feel very seen and very heard in those minutes that he took on stage.”
During his Feb. 4 speech, reflected on the Recording Academy’s treatment of Black artists and specifically highlighted Will Smith and DJ Jazzy Jeff—who boycotted the 1989 Grammys after their category, which awarded the duo the first rap Grammy ever, wasn’t televised—and the late DMX, who was also snubbed in 1998.
The Charlotte Hornets have agreed to trade P.J. Washington to the Dallas Mavericks in exchange for Grant Williams, Seth Curry, and a first-round pick, as reported by Shams Charania of The Athletic.
The first-round pick headed to Charlotte is Dallas’ 2027 selection, with top-two protection, according to Charania. In return, the Mavericks will also receive two second-round picks from Charlotte, potentially aiding in finalizing the Daniel Gafford trade with the Washington Wizards.
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