Not all EU members are in favour of freezing Russian assets due to concerns over legal basis and reprisal from Moscow.

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has said Moscow will achieve its objectives and rejected war with the West as the European Union considers seizing Russian monies to fund Ukraine, as the war is now in its fourth punishing winter.

During a high-level meeting on Wednesday with Ministry of Defence officials, Putin was quoted by state media as describing calls in the West to prepare for war with Russia as “hysteria and a lie”.

Recommended Stories

list of 3 itemsend of list

However, he emphasised that the Kremlin’s war goals will “undoubtedly” be achieved, adding that 300 territories were “liberated” over the past year.

The Russian president repeated Moscow prefers to deal with what it calls the root causes of the conflict through diplomacy, but remains prepared to “achieve the liberation of its historical lands by military means” if the West refuses substantial talks.

The comments come a day before European Union leaders are to gather for a summit to see if they can agree on using some of the 210 billion euros ($246bn) in assets of the Russian central bank in Europe to advance Ukraine’s economic and military needs.

“One thing is very, very clear,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told EU lawmakers on Wednesday. “We have to take the decision to fund Ukraine for the next two years in this European Council.”

European Council President António Costa, who will chair the summit, has pledged to keep the leaders negotiating until an agreement is reached, even if it takes days.

EU officials want to use the frozen assets to underwrite a 90 billion euros ($105bn) “reparations loan” to Ukraine.

But amid concerns that the idea is on legally shaky ground and could lead to investors losing their trust in European markets, Belgium, Italy and several other members of the 27-nation bloc have expressed rejection or serious reservations.

Speaking in the Italian parliament on Wednesday, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said negotiations in Berlin were “constructive” and accused Russia of making “unreasonable” demands to keep hold of Ukrainian territory as part of a potential agreement.

But she admitted that finding a legal way to use frozen Russian assets to help finance Ukraine remained “far from easy”, and said Rome would require a strong legal basis for all proposed actions.

In the meantime, United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer told the House of Commons on Wednesday that his government will formally issue instructions to transfer 2.5 billion pounds ($3.3bn) from Roman Abramovich’s sale of Chelsea FC to humanitarian causes in Ukraine.

The Russian billionaire, who sold the club in 2022 under pressure from the British government after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, must “pay up”, Starmer said.

Battlefield state of play

Ukraine claimed on Wednesday it had taken 90 percent of the town of Kupiansk in the Kharkiv region, which Moscow said it had captured in November.

Russian Defence Minister Andrei Belousov later told a televised meeting of top defence officials that Ukrainian forces were trying unsuccessfully to take control of Kupiansk.

Of the regions of Ukraine that Russia has claimed as its own territory, it currently controls all of Crimea, around 90 percent of the eastern Donbas region, which comprises Donetsk and Luhansk, and 75 percent of Kherson and Zaporizhia. Russia also holds some territory in the adjoining regions of Kharkiv, Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk and Mykolaiv.

Russia and Ukraine have escalated targeting of each other’s energy sites and oil refineries in recent weeks.

SOURCE PAGE

As details of the Bondi beach massacre started to emerge on Sunday evening, Andrew Hastie posted a video with his immediate reaction to his large social media following.

Standing at a beach, the sun yet to set over his electorate south of Perth, the Liberal MP said in a 60-second video posted to Facebook and Instagram: “I am angry, and I know you are too.

“What we saw at Bondi beach today was cold-blooded murder. We don’t know why it happened but we’ll know soon. And when we know more, I’ll have plenty to say, don’t you worry about that. I’m pretty sure we can guess what’s motivated this.”

At that very early stage, the New South Wales police commissioner, Mal Lanyon, was yet to declare the mass shooting at Chanukah by the Sea a terrorist incident and details about the alleged gunmen – including motivation – wasn’t yet known or publicly disclosed.

But it appeared Hastie’s mind was already made up.

As the Coalition focused in the hours and days that followed on trying to connect Anthony Albanese’s handling of antisemitism to the atrocity, Hastie quickly, explicitly and repeatedly sought to link it to something else: immigration.

The former soldier quit Sussan Ley’s shadow cabinet in October to wage a personal campaign to slash Australia’s immigration levels.

His arguments had been largely about the number of people entering the country, a volume he controversially claimed was making Australians feel like “strangers in our own home”.

But his response to the Bondi attack reveals the immigration agenda he shares with colleagues such as Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, rightwing lobby group Advance and even Pauline Hanson’s One Nation was always as much, if not more, about the “who” than the “how many”.

“The real question is, who are we letting into our country?” Hastie told Sky News’ Andrew Clennell on Monday night, ending in one sentence any pretence that his grievances might have been purely numerical.

“I know the Australian people have had a gutful, and I think we need to narrow, very dramatically, those who we let into our country. They need to support Australian values: faith, reason, inquiry, debate, persuasion. They need to support our country and our people.”

Hastie did praise Syrian-born Ahmed al-Ahmed, the man who rushed to disarm alleged gunmen Sajid Akram during Sunday’s rampage, as an “absolute hero”.

So where do we draw the line, Clennell pressed, asking Hastie if he wanted fewer migrants from Muslim-majority countries.

“I want to see people come to this country who speak English, who support Australian values,” he repeated.

Hastie went further in a second Sky News interview on Tuesday night.

“We have a problem with radical Islamic theology and I think one of the areas that we really need to look at is immigration,” he said.

“Numbers are one thing but I think who we bring into our country is really important. They have to sign up to Australian values, which are fundamentally Judeo-Christian values: equality, the rule of law, consent, democratic traditions – all those things are fundamentally Judeo-Christian.”

Price, who was sacked from the frontbench in September after wrongly suggesting Labor was manipulating Australia’s non-discriminatory migration system to favour Indians, responded to the Bondi shootings with her own Facebook video on Monday night.

In it, she called for, among other things, a ban on the keffiyeh being worn in parliament, the outlawing of the chant “from the river to the sea”, banning of pro-Palestine marches and cancellation of the visas of Gazan refugees.

“Our nation is changing for the worse,” she said.

Hastie and Price might sit on the opposition backbench but both are agents of influence in rightwing circles, capable of shaping the views of conservative voters and colleagues alike.

Hastie’s video on Sunday night has racked up almost 1 million views on Instagram, while Price’s Facebook post has been shared 11,000 times and “liked” and “love-hearted” a combined 56,000 times. For comparison, an Instagram video of Ley responding to the Bondi massacre has attracted just 20,000 views as of Wednesday afternoon.

Ley was this week planning to release the “principles” to underpin the Coalition’s immigration policy before the Bondi shootings.

Among the principles will be a commitment to force visa holders to comply with “Australian values”, a policy that Liberal MPs other than Hastie, including the shadow home affairs minister, Jonathon Duniam, have emphasised the need for after revelations of the alleged gunmen’s extremist links.

Delaying the announcement until the new year would be a sensible decision. But the immigration debate will soon resume.

And when it does, Hastie, Price and Advance will ensure it’s not just about numbers. It never was.

SOURCE PAGE

Rwanda-backed M23 rebels agreed on Tuesday to withdraw from the key city of Uvira in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) following a request from the United States.

The rebels entered Uvira, near the borders of Burundi and Rwanda last week, days after the Congolese and Rwandan governments signed a peace accord in Washington.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that Rwanda’s actions violated the US-brokered deal and vowed to “take action to ensure promises made to the President are kept.”

Rwanda has repeatedly denied supporting M23 and has blamed Congolese and Burundian forces for the renewed fighting.

Jason Stearns, director of the Congo Research Group, noted that the continuing clashes have been “elevated to a very high level in Washington.”

“The level of hypocrisy really angered senior people in the White House and in the State Department,” Stearns added.

Burundian nationals remain stranded at the Kavimvira border post between the DRC and BurundiImage: Jospin Mwisha/AFP/Getty Images

Sanctions threat forces M23 retreat

“Rwanda and the M23 have realized that they have clearly overshot the mark this time,” said Timo Roujean from the German Konrad Adenauer Foundation (KAS) in Kinshasa, which is affiliated with the German center-right party CDU.

“As soon as serious sanctions against Rwanda are considered, the M23 withdraws,” Roujean added. “This actually proves that Rwanda is the puppet master behind the M23.”

After seizing major cities including Goma in January and Bukavu in February, the capture of Uvira gave M23 rebels control over the land border between the DRC and Burundi. 

“Burundi has been one of the key allies of Kinshasa,” said Stearns. “They’ve deployed over 10,000 troops. And by cutting them off from the front line that was strategically important. Of course that will change if the M23 give up Uvira. We’ll have to see how far they withdraw.”

“The residents are not yet convinced by this statement,” said DW correspondent Ruth Alonga, who spoke to people on the ground in Uvira.

“Firstly, the rebels are still there, so nothing has changed. And secondly, the population tends to trust facts rather than statements. The M23 has already announced on social media that it could withdraw from Uvira under certain conditions.”

M23 pushes for neutral peace force

A statement from an alliance that includes M23 fighters called for “adequate measures” to be put in place to manage Uvira, including “demilitarization, protecting its population and infrastructure, and monitoring the ceasefire with a neutral force.”

It called for implementation of a framework ceasefire deal reached in a parallel peace process negotiated in the Qatari capital Doha, which was agreed in November but never respected on the ground.

M23 said it was withdrawing as a gesture “to instill trust in order to give the Doha peace process every chance to succeed.” However, the rebel group also made it clear that they do not intend to cede any further “liberated territories” for the time being.

The statement emphasized that it will not allow armed groups hostile to Burundi’s government “to use liberated areas as rear bases for any hostile acts likely to undermine good neighborly relations between our two countries.”

The neutral force demanded by the M23 must be composed primarily of countries from the subregion that are not involved in the conflict, noted DW correspondent Alonga, who added that the neutral force cannot be established immediately — it will take time. 

Rwanda-backed forces continue offensive in DRC

To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video

Sanctions loom over Rwanda’s gold trade

“There’s currently much talk around sanctions in Washington, DC,” said Stearns.

“If they proceeded to sanction not just individual commanders, but key institutions in Rwanda, like gold — which is the only gold refinery and the main exporter of gold and is owned by the Ministry of Defense — that could be debilitating for Rwanda,” Stearns told DW.

There would be a whole range of possibilities on the table, “ranging from a review of support or allowing Rwanda to deploy troops and peacekeeping operations to travel and business advisories,” he added. “And if the US steps forward, my understanding is that Europeans would also act.”

Timo Roujean from the KAS asked: “What would have happened if the EU or the US had imposed sanctions on Rwanda earlier? Would we have come this far at all? To the fall of Goma and Bukavu, to all these atrocities that have now been committed against the population?”

After the capture of Goma and Bukavu, almost 120,000 Congolese fled to Burundi — and after the fall of Uvira, according to the UN, more than 40,000 people joined them.

Marthe Maombi, 69, also fled with her extended family from the east of the DRC to Burundi — for the second time in a year, she told DW. They have been trying to build a new life in the Burundian city of Bujumbura.

“I fled with my grandchildren,” Maombi said. “Food is very expensive, we hardly eat anything. We can’t even find anyone to work for in exchange for food. It’s torture.”

Why isn’t the DR Congo the world’s richest country?

To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video

Border closure strands families in Burundi

It has not been possible for most families like Maombi’s to return to the DRC.

“The return is becoming a problem,” Shukuru Amani, who comes from a village in South Kivu province’s Ruzizi Plain, told DW.

His family members are currently stuck in Burundi as the border is closed for security reasons. And its reopening is not imminent says DW’s Alonga, because there is no climate of trust between Burundi and the M23. 

On the other hand, on December 14, several hundred Burundian nationals stranded in Uvira were able to return to their country after negotiations between the rebels and the Burundian state, led by the Catholic Diocese of Uvira.

Meanwhile, daily life in Uvira is moving at a snail’s pace, reports Alonga, adding that shops are closed, traffic is lighter than usual, and the population remains cautious.

Ruth Alonga in Uvira, DRC and Antéditeste Niragira in Bujumbura, Burundi contributed reporting 

Edited by: Keith Walker

SOURCE PAGE

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

The Trump administration has moved its hemispheric security doctrine into full force in Venezuela, ordering a sweeping naval blockade on sanctioned oil tankers and labeling Nicolás Maduro’s government a Foreign Terrorist Organization — a dramatic escalation aimed at choking off the regime’s primary source of revenue and confronting what the White House calls a growing threat of cartel-driven “drug terrorism” and foreign influence in the region.

Announcing the move on social media, Trump said Venezuela was now “completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the history of South America,” a strike at an oil sector that accounts for roughly 88% of the country’s export earnings.

The administration’s new National Security Strategy (NSS) places the Western Hemisphere at the center of U.S. national security planning, elevating regional instability, mass migration, cartels and foreign influence as direct challenges to American security. While the document does not single out Venezuela by name, its framework positions crises like Venezuela’s collapse as central to protecting what the strategy calls America’s “immediate security perimeter.”

MADURO’S FORCES FACE RENEWED SCRUTINY AS US TENSIONS RISE: ‘A FORTRESS BUILT ON SAND’ 

According to the NSS, U.S. policy toward the hemisphere now focuses on preventing large-scale migration, countering “narco-terrorists, cartels, and other transnational criminal organizations,” and ensuring the region remains “reasonably stable and well-governed enough to prevent and discourage mass migration.” It also pledges to assert a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, aimed at blocking “hostile foreign incursion or ownership of key assets” by strategic competitors.

A senior White House official said the Western Hemisphere chapter is designed to “reassert American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere” by strengthening regional security partnerships, curbing drug flows and preventing pressures that fuel mass migration. The official said the strategy situates the hemisphere as a foundational element of U.S. defense and prosperity.

Newly released footage shows U.S. forces securing a Venezuelan oil tanker. (@AGPamBondi via X)

White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said the NSS reflects what the administration sees as a historic realignment of U.S. foreign policy. “President Trump’s National Security Strategy builds upon the historic achievements of his first year back in office, which has seen his Administration move with historic speed to restore American strength at home and abroad and bring peace to the world,” Kelly told Fox News Digital.

“In less than a year, President Trump has ended eight wars, persuaded Europe to take greater responsibility for its own defense, facilitated US-made weapons sales to NATO allies, negotiated fairer trade deals, obliterated Iran’s nuclear facilities, and more.” The strategy, she added, is designed to ensure “America remains the greatest and most successful nation in human history.”

Melissa Ford Maldonado, director of the Western Hemisphere Initiative at the America First Policy Institute, said Venezuela illustrates why the hemisphere is now treated as America’s “first line of defense.”

“The Maduro regime functions as a narco-dictatorship closely tied to criminal cartels, which are now considered foreign terror organizations, and supported by China, Iran, and Russia,” she said. “Confronting this criminal regime is about keeping poison off our streets and chaos off our shores.”

MADURO’S FORCES FACE RENEWED SCRUTINY AS US TENSIONS RISE: ‘A FORTRESS BUILT ON SAND’ 

President Donald Trump signs a series of executive orders at the White House on Jan. 20, 2025, in Washington, DC. Trump’s new National Security Strategy puts the Western Hemisphere at the center of U.S. security planning, a senior official said. (Jabin Botsford /The Washington Post via Getty Images)

She called the NSS “the most radical and long-overdue change in U.S. foreign policy in a generation,” arguing that instability in Latin America now reaches the United States “in real time” through migration surges, narcotics trafficking and foreign intelligence networks.

Some analysts caution that the strategy’s sharper posture could become destabilizing if pressure escalates into a confrontation.

Roxanna Vigil, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the path ahead depends heavily on how forceful the administration’s approach becomes. “If it goes in the direction of escalation and conflict, that means there’s going to be very little control,” she said. “If there is a power vacuum, who fills it?”

HEGSETH HINTS MAJOR DEFENSE SPENDING INCREASE, REVEALS NEW DETAILS ON TRUMP’S ANTI-NARCOTERRORISM OPERATIONS

Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro. (AP)

Vigil warned that without a negotiated transition, a sudden collapse could produce outcomes “potentially worse than Maduro.” She said armed groups, hardline regime actors and cartel-linked networks would all compete for power, with potential spillover effects across a region already strained by mass displacement.

Jason Marczak, vice president of the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center, said the NSS underscores why the administration views Maduro’s continued rule as incompatible with its regional priorities.

“All of those goals cannot be accomplished as long as Nicolás Maduro or anybody close to him remains in power,” he said, pointing to the strategy’s focus on migration, regional security and countering foreign influence. “Venezuela is a conduit for foreign influence in the hemisphere.”

US SET TO SEIZE TENS OF MILLIONS IN VENEZUELAN OIL AFTER TANKER INTERCEPTION, WHITE HOUSE SAYS

In this April 13, 2019 file photo, Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro, speaks flanked by Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez, right, and Gen. Ivan Hernandez, second from right, head of both the presidential guard and military counterintelligence in Caracas, Venezuela.  (Ariana Cubillos/AP Photo)

Marczak said Venezuelans “were ready for change” in the 2024 election, but warned that replacing Maduro with another insider “doesn’t really accomplish anything.” He argued that only a democratic transition would allow Venezuela to re-enter global markets and stabilize the region.

Both Marczak and Vigil noted that the danger extends beyond Maduro to the criminal ecosystem and foreign partnerships that sustain his rule. Without a negotiated transition, Vigil said, the forces most likely to prevail are those already controlling territory: militias, cartel-linked groups and pro-Chavista power brokers.

Ford-Maldonado said that reality is precisely why the administration’s strategy elevates Venezuela’s crisis within its broader Western Hemisphere doctrine.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

Military strikes on suspected narco-trafficking vessels have killed some 37 people since September. (Department of War)

“Confronting a narco-regime tied to foreign adversaries is not a distraction from America First — it’s the clearest expression of it,” she said. “What’s ultimately being defended are American lives, American children, and American communities.”

The administration’s adoption of a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine indicates a more assertive U.S. stance toward the hemisphere, framing Venezuela not only as a humanitarian or political crisis but as a critical test of the strategy’s core principles: migration control, counter-cartel operations and limiting foreign adversaries’ reach. Within this framework, experts say the consequences of inaction could create security risks that extend well beyond Venezuela’s borders.

Efrat Lachter is an investigative reporter and war correspondent. Her work has taken her to 40 countries, including Ukraine, Russia, Iraq, Syria, Sudan and Afghanistan. She is a recipient of the 2024 Knight-Wallace Fellowship for Journalism. Lachter can be followed on X @efratlachter.

SOURCE PAGE

Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox

Get our free Inside Washington email

Get our free Inside Washington email

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez slammed the closed-door briefings held Tuesday on the U.S. military’s strikes on an alleged drug-carrying boats in the Caribbean, calling them “a joke.”

“Were you satisfied with the answers that you’ve gotten so far today in these classified briefings?” journalist Pablo Manríquez asked Ocasio-Cortez in a clip shared on X Tuesday.

The New York Democrat immediately responded, “Oh, hell no.”

“That was a joke, that was a joke,” she continued.

AOC was then asked if any questions were answered about the deadly second strike on an alleged drug boat this September, which killed two people who survived the initial strike.

open image in gallery

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called the meetings held on the U.S. military’s strikes on alleged drug boats “not a serious intelligence briefing” (Getty)

“There was not a single piece of information that was shared that even rises to the level of any other briefing that we’ve seen on Ukraine, China, anything. This was not a serious intelligence briefing. This was a communication of opinion, and if this administration wants to go to war, they need to go get it from Congress,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio held a closed-door meeting for all members of Congress on Tuesday about the U.S. military strikes.

Hegseth later said the Pentagon would not publicly release the unedited video of a controversial second strike attack — also referred to as a “double-tap” — which took place in early September. That strike killed 11, including two who initially survived.

“In keeping with longstanding [Pentagon] policy, of course we’re not going to rrelease a top-secret, full, unedited video of that to the general public,” Hegseth told reporters Tuesday.

Members of the House and Senate Armed Services committees will see the footage, “but not the general public,” he added. It was not immediately clear if all members of Congress would be allowed to view it, too.

President Donald Trump’s administration has killed at least 95 people in a series of strikes targeting alleged drug-trafficking boats in the Pacific and Caribbean.

open image in gallery

Hegseth said video of the deadly strike would not be released to the public (Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer also expressed his disappointment with the meeting, saying that Hegseth and administration officials came “empty-handed.”

“If they can’t be transparent on this, how can they be transparent on all the other issues swirling about the Caribbean?” Schumer said.

“All senators are entitled to see it,” he added. “I also believe every American should see an appropriate version … of what happened September 2. I saw it. It is deeply troubling. … We don’t want another endless war. We don’t want to stumble into something, and given Trump’s erratic back-and-forth on this issue — I worry about that, and so do many Americans.”

Meanwhile, administration officials insist the two dozen strikes they’ve carried out are within legal bounds, supported by the administration’s notice to Congress that the United States is formally engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels, that the president has labeled “unlawful combatants.”

Admiral Frank M. “Mitch” Bradley, who issued the order to fire a second time on the vessel on September 2, also addressed lawmakers in closed-door briefings earlier this month.

SOURCE PAGE

NEED TO KNOW

• Fallout the series is inspired by a beloved video game by the same name
• The show is set in the game’s universe, although not every character has an exact match
• Fallout season 2 premiered on Prime Video on Dec. 16

Prime Video’s Fallout is set in a post-apocalyptic Los Angeles where people are forced to live in bunkers underground to avoid radiation, mutants and bandits in the wasteland.

The show is based on the video game series of the same name; however, it isn’t a direct adaptation of the game and follows its own timeline. The main characters — Lucy MacLean (Ella Purnell), The Ghoul (Walton Goggins) and Maximus (Aaron Moten) — are inspired by figures from the video game but were created specifically for the series.

During an appearance at the CCXP entertainment convention in São Paolo, Brazil, in December 2023, executive producer and showrunner Graham Wagner said he views the show as a continuation of the video game.

“We didn’t start from a place of characters from the games,” he said, per IGN. “We set things after. We kind of told ourselves, this is Fallout 5, this is just another installation, and we’re starting with fresh snow.”

In season 2, which premieres on Dec. 16, Justin Theroux will join the cast as Robert House, a major character pulled directly from the video games.

Here’s a look at the Fallout cast side-by-side with the video game characters that inspired them.

Ella Purnell as Vault 33 Dweller Lucy MacLean, inspired by Vault Dweller

Ella Purnell as Vault 33 Dweller Lucy MacLean, inspired by Vault 13 Dweller Fallout.

Courtesy of Prime; Bethesda 

Purnell plays the main protagonist, Vault 33 Dweller Lucy MacLean.

Her character is inspired by all the Vault Dwellers from the first Fallout video game. Vault Dwellers are considered the protagonists of the original video game, and players can create their own version or choose from three pre-made dwellers. There is only one premade VD who is female, and her name is Natalia Dubrovhsky.

Speaking with Refinery29 Australia in April 2024, Purnell said that she was immediately drawn to the project but understood the pressure of joining a “well-loved” universe.

“Coming into anything that is well-loved and already very firmly established is hard,” she said. “You want to treat the source material with respect, especially when it’s something as good as Fallout. You really want to do justice to the people who work so hard on the games and the fans who are so passionate about the games.”

As for what drew her to the character, Purnell shared she enjoys “seeing women sort of explore the very depths and the extent of what they’re capable of in desperation.”

Walton Goggins as The Ghoul, inspired by the Vault-Tec Rep

Walton Goggins as The Ghoul, inspired by the Vault-Tec Rep Fallout.

Lorenzo Sisti/Prime;Bethesda 

Goggins portrays The Ghoul, a bounty hunter who used to be a beloved actor and Vault-Tec spokesperson named Cooper Howard.

The dual character might have been inspired by the Vault-Tec Rep featured in Fallout 4. In the game, the rep promotes vaults as a door-to-door salesman before the war, but is shown 200 years later with decaying skin and a cut-off nose that was caused by radioactive fallout.

During an interview with Deadline in June 2024, Goggins said he was intrigued by the idea of playing two very different sides of one character.

“I was just taken with the person that I read on page one and the person that I read however many pages later, and I thought, ‘Wow, what an opportunity to go from this person to this person, and fill in the details of what happened in between in his life,’ ” he said.

Goggins continued, “I thought it was a very unique opportunity to go from an optimistic, fully-fledged human being, to a cynical fraction of a human being who has absorbed all the pain and the devastation of the world that has experienced a nuclear fallout.”

Aaron Moten as Maximus, inspired by the Brotherhood of Steel

Aaron Moten as Maximus, inspired by the Brotherhood of Steel Fallout.

Lorenzo Sisti/Prime;Bethesda 

Moten plays Maximus, a member of the Brotherhood of Steel. The military order’s purpose is to collect and preserve advanced pre-war technology and is featured in every installment of the Fallout video game series.

The actor told WWD in April 2024 that playing a character who wasn’t directly adapted from the video game gave him some creative freedom.

“I didn’t have to worry about doing the voice. I didn’t have to worry about nailing any kind of characteristics,” he said. “It felt like we could really tell the kind of story that we would want to see.”

Instead, Moten partly based Maximus on the character Cassius from the William Shakespeare play Julius Caesar.

“[Cassius’] ambition is like a hungry dog, and things like that really got stuck in me about how to build this guy who’s been born in the wasteland,” he said. “He’s always hungry for these things, and at the same time, he’s discovering himself and what he wants, but no matter what it is that he wants, there’s a tension to it, this starving for it, like a desperation.”

Sarita Choudhury as Lee Moldaver, inspired by Conrad Kellogg

Sarita Choudhury as Lee Moldaver, inspired by Conrad Kellogg Fallout.

Prime; Bethesda

Sarita Choudhury portrays Lee Moldaver, a leading raider and former nuclear fusion scientist.

Her character shares many similarities with Conrad Kellogg from Fallout 4, who is also portrayed as an antagonist for kidnapping a family member of the main protagonist.

Choudhury told Nerdist in April 2024 that her character being viewed as both good and bad was part of what drew her to the role.

“That’s why I wanted to play her because in life I’m a bit like that,” she said. “I don’t really see things in terms of good and bad. I see things in terms of intelligence and curiosity as a gauge for people.”

The actress added, “And that’s why I enjoyed playing her in episode 1 where I was like, ‘I don’t care if people think she’s that bad, and then they think she’s good,’ because she’s kind of both because to raid a vault, she’s still killing people. But her mission is so pure that she’s saving multitudes. So, I think for her, it’s a game of math and heart.”

Michael Mulheren as Big MT executive Fredrick Sinclair

Big MT executive Frederick Sinclair fallout.

Prime; Bethesda

Michael Mulheren briefly appeared in the season 1 finale as Big MT Executive Frederick Sinclair, who attended a secret meeting at Vault-Tec HQ.

Frederick appears in the Fallout: New Vegas add-ons Dead Money and Old World Blues, where he is described as a client of Big MT rather than an executive and is only seen alive in murals.

Justin Theroux as Robert House

Justin Theroux Robert House Fallout.

Prime; Bethesda

Theroux joins the season 2 cast as Robert House, the founder and CEO of RobCo Industries, a robotics company. He is featured in the video game Fallout: New Vegas, where he becomes the self-appointed ruler of New Vegas.

During a December 2025 appearance at the CCXP entertainment convention in São Paolo, Brazil, Theroux opened up about portraying a character who mainly appears through a computer screen in the video game.

“In the video game, we don’t really see flesh and blood House,” he said, per IGN. “And so that was really fun, just from an acting perspective to breathe life into that character and see him walk around. That was really fun.”

Theroux added, “The challenge was just to make him as realized as possible. Obviously not phone it in and not really try and compete with the wonderful actor who had already been his voice in the game.”

SOURCE PAGE

New footage has shown Nick Reiner calmly buying a drink at a gas station just moments before he was arrested for the murder of his parents, the celebrated Hollywood filmmaker Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner.

The 32-year-old was charged with two counts of first-degree murder and is being held without bail in Los Angeles. 

Footage shows the screenwriter, wearing a black cap and a red backpack, queueing up and purchasing the drink before cops apprehended him.

Emergency services were called to provide medical aid at the Reiners’ home in Brentwood, California, at about 3.30pm on Sunday.

At around 9pm, Nick was arrested in the Exposition Park area of Los Angeles, close to the University of Southern California campus, some 15 miles away from the mansion where he allegedly killed his parents. 

He did not resist when he was arrested, Deputy Chief Alan Hamilton said.

The charges also include a ‘special allegation’ that the suspect used a ‘dangerous and deadly weapon, that being a knife’. 

Nick, who has struggled with drug addiction, mental illness and bouts of homelessness over the years, could potentially be sentenced to life in prison or even face the death penalty if he’s convicted of murder.

The charges include a special circumstance of committing multiple murders, which can elevate them to a more severe crime.

The couple’s 27-year-old daughter, Romy, who lives across the street from her parents, was the first person to find their bodies, according to Los Angeles Times and TMZ.com, a celebrity news website.

New footage has shown Nick Reiner calmy buying a drink at a gas station just moments before he was arrested for the murder of his parents, the celebrated Hollywood filmmaker Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner

Footage shows the screenwriter, wearing a black cap and a red backpack, queueing up and purchasing the drink before cops apprehended him

The night before their murders, the Reiners were heard having an explosive argument with Nick at a festive Hollywood party thrown by Conan O’Brien, the late-night television show host.

Moments before the fight, Nick was apparently ‘freaking everyone out’ and ‘acting crazy’, asking everyone at the mansion in the Pacific Palisades if they were famous, a source told People magazine.

Reiner directed a handful of legendary films in a variety of genres before his death aged 78, including This is Spinal Tap, Misery, A Few Good Men, When Harry Met Sally and Stand by Me.

His wife Michele, 70, was a producer, photographer and actress, and the founder of Reiner Light, a photography agency and production house.

The Hollywood couple left the Christmas party early after the argument unfolded in front of some of the industry’s biggest stars, according to TMZ. 

As well as arguing with his parents, Nick allegedly ‘stormed off’ after getting into a tense chat with comedian Bill Hader.

A source claimed to NBC News that Nick ‘interrupted Hader’ at the party and was allegedly left annoyed when the SNL comic told him he was ‘in the middle of a private conversation.’

The source claimed after Hader’s alleged comment: ‘Nick just stood there and stared before storming off.’

Join the debate

Do YOU think this case highlights failures in long term mental health support?

Nick Reiner was charged with two counts of first-degree murder and is being held without bail in Los Angeles. Pictured above at the premiere of ‘Spinal Tap II: The End Continues’ on September 9, 2025

LA police released photos of Nick Reiner being arrested 15 miles from his father Rob Reiner and mother Michele Singer Reiner’s Brentwood mansion

Rob and Nick Reiner pictured during an interview on May 4, 2016 in New York City

Rob Reiner, Michele Reiner, Romy Reiner, Nick Reiner and family pictured at a premier for ‘Spinal Tap II: The End Continues’ in Los Angeles, September 9, 2025 

Celebrated Hollywood filmmaker Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner were found dead on Sunday. Pictured in March 2025 in Los Angeles

On Monday, President Donald Trump sparked fury after he suggested ‘Trump derangement syndrome’ had contributed to the director’s death.

He wrote on his Truth Social platform: ‘A very sad thing happened last night in Hollywood. Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star, has passed away, together with his wife, Michele, reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind-crippling disease known as Trump derangement syndrome.

‘He [Reiner] was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J Trump, with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness, and with the Golden Age of America upon us, perhaps like never before. May Rob and Michele rest in peace!’

Michelle Obama later defended the Reiners on Jimmy Kimmel Live, describing them as ‘decent, courageous people’.

She said she and Barack Obama had known the couple for ‘many years’ and had been scheduled to meet them the day they were found dead. 

She told the late-night host: ‘Let me just say this – unlike some people, Rob and Michele Reiner are some of the most decent, courageous people you’d ever want to know. They are not deranged or crazed. What they have always been are passionate people in a time when there’s not a lot of courage going on.’ 

Just two weeks before her parents’ murders, Romy shared heartwarming vacation photos on Instagram, writing that she was ‘thankful for family’. 

The 27-year-old went to check on her film director father and mom after their masseuse said they failed to answer the door around 2pm Sunday, sources told the Daily Mail.

When she arrived at their $13.5 million Brentwood mansion, she found them dead, allegedly with their throats slit. 

Horrified, Romy allegedly told police that a family member ‘should be a suspect’ because they are ‘dangerous’.

The Reiners pictured with their children Jake (middle), Romy and Nick (right) in 2014

Rob and Nick pictured at AOL Studios in New York on May 4, 2016 

Just two weeks before her parents’ murders, Romy shared heartwarming vacation photos on Instagram, writing that she was ‘thankful for family’. Pictured with her father Rob Reiner 

Prosecutors did not answer whether Nick was under the influence of drugs at the time of the killings or whether he was suffering from a mental health disorder.

‘If there is evidence of mental illness, it will be presented in court,’ said Jim McDonnell, the LAPD chief of police.

In 2016, aged 22, Nick claimed he had already gone to rehab 17 times and had been left homeless repeatedly after refusing offers of help.

‘I was homeless in Maine. I was homeless in New Jersey. I was homeless in Texas. I spent nights on the street. I spent weeks on the street. It was not fun,’ he told People magazine.

‘If I wanted to do it my way and not go to the programs they were suggesting, then I had to be homeless,’ he said, seemingly referring to his family.

His experience battling addiction later become the story of a semi-autobiographical film he co-wrote with his father, called Being Charlie, that explores his struggles with heroine and homelessness.

Sunday’s tragedy comes after Romy previously shared her closeness with her brother, describing Nick as her ‘best friend’ and revealing that she had supported him throughout his battle with drug addiction.

In 2015, the Reiner family sat around a dinner table for an interview with the LA Times to discuss Being Charlie.

‘This is my best friend and I was there for all of it,’ Romy said at the time. ‘It’s weird but good to see it on the screen.’ 

Rob Reiner (C) and his daughter Romy Reiner (L) and his wife Michele Reiner (R) pictured in Los Angeles in October, 2017

Michele and Rob Reiner pictured with their children Jack, Romy and Rob

Rob Reiner, Romy Reiner and Jake Reiner in Los Angeles on May 13, 2025 

Rob Reiner’s family members came together on Tuesday to share their grief over the iconic filmmaker and his wife’s murders over the weekend at the home of his brother, 65-year-old Lucas Reiner (pictured)

Rose Reiner, Rob and Michele Singer Reiner’s niece and the daughter of Lucas, was seen pulling another mourner in for a hug

Rob and Michele’s deaths were confirmed on Sunday night in a family statement about the tragic news. 

‘It is with profound sorrow that we announce the tragic passing of Michele and Rob Reiner,’ said a family spokesperson. 

‘We are heartbroken by this sudden loss, and we ask for privacy during this unbelievably difficult time.’ 

Family members came together on Tuesday to share their grief over the iconic filmmaker and his wife’s murders.

Lucas Reiner, the brother of the late Rob, was pictured greeting other members of the extended family after inviting them over to his home in Los Angeles in photos shot by the Daily Mail.

The grieving relatives hugged each other closely on the same day that Nick was charged. 

SOURCE PAGE

A woman couldn’t believe what she was hearing when an Aldi staff member said that she’d have to check with her manager whether she could sell her the bags of popcorn she wanted

13:05, 17 Dec 2025Updated 13:05, 17 Dec 2025

A member of staff prepares to scan goods taken from a customer’s shopping basket at the check-out counter inside an Aldi supermarket store in London, U.K., on Monday, June 29, 2015. The growth of Aldi and fellow German-owned discounter Lidl has changed the British grocery landscape over the last five years. Photographer: Jason Alden/Bloomberg via Getty Images

A woman was left dumbfounded when she was told she wasn’t allowed to buy popcorn at her local Aldi for a baffling reason. Holly, who posts on TikTok as @holly_mum2three, asked her followers whether she was in the wrong or whether the supermarket was at fault for not selling her the snacks for her son’s Christmas movie night.

“I always try to help out at as many PTA (parent teacher association) events as I can, and my role for the last couple of years at this event is to be in charge of making popcorn bags for the kids,” Holly explained. She said she’d gone to Aldi to buy 45 share bags of popcorn so she could put together 200 individual bags for all the kids.

She explained there were only 44 bags of popcorn available at the store, but she was going to wing it and hope it would be enough. When she went to the till she handed the member of staff one of the bags, telling her she had 44.

She said: “I fully expected her to say she needed to count them,” which she was happy for her to do. However, instead, she was left floored when the woman at the till said she was going to have to check whether she was allowed to sell that many bags of popcorn at once.

After a back and forth with her manager, they came to the conclusion that they were not able to sell her 44 bags, and they’d only be able to let her buy 22.

“I was told it was because they didn’t have any more stock of the popcorn in the back, and therefore I couldn’t take it all,” Holly said.

“Now, I was left a little bit confused by that because one, I thought the whole point of a shop was that you can go and buy stuff, is that not what a shop is for?

“And two, if I went into Aldi and I only needed one bag of popcorn and there was one bag of popcorn on the shelves, and they didn’t have any others in stock, would they refuse to sell me that one bag of popcorn because they didn’t have any more stock?

“I don’t think they would.”

In the comments, someone wrote: “The reason is that Aldi is not a wholesaler, therefore does not sell in bulk. Aldi wants all of their products to be available to all customers who enter their shops.

Content cannot be displayed without consent

“If you buy those 44 bags, they won’t be able to have that stock back on sale for two days, because they order their stock two days in advance of their deliveries. Aldi stores are happy to order the amount of stock you need, if you go in two days prior for them to order it in for you”.

Another suggested Holly should have gone in and bought the other 22 bags in a separate transaction and at a different till.

But others reckoned it was a “good business decision” not to allow her to buy all of the popcorn bags, even though she had a good reason.

It is understood Aldi sometimes chooses to limit how much of a single product shoppers can buy to ensure they have enough availability for all customers. They can also order items in bulk on request.

SOURCE PAGE

Fifteen years ago, a Tunisian fruit seller, Mohamed Bouazizi, despairing at official corruption and police violence, walked to the centre of his hometown of Sidi Bouzid, set himself on fire, and changed the region forever.

Much of the hope triggered by that act lies in ruins. The revolutions that followed in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Syria have cost the lives of tens and thousands before, in some cases, giving way to chaos or the return of authoritarianism.

Recommended Stories

list of 4 itemsend of list

Only Tunisia appeared to fulfil the promise of the “Arab Spring”, with voices from around the world championing its democratic success, ignoring economic and political failings through much of its post-revolutionary history that stirred discontent.

Today, many of Tunisia’s post-revolutionary gains have been cast aside in the wake of President Kais Saied’s dramatic power grab in July 2021. Labelled a coup by his opponents, it ushered in a new hardline rule in Tunisia.

Burying the hopes of the revolution

Over the following years, as well as temporarily shuttering parliament – only reopening it in March 2023 – Saied has rewritten the constitution and overseen a relentless crackdown on critics and opponents.

“They essentially came for everyone; judges, civil society members, people from all political backgrounds, especially the ones that were talking about unifying an opposition against the coup regime,” Kaouther Ferjani, whose father, 71-year-old Ennahdha leader Said Ferjani, was arrested in February 2023.

In September, Saied said his measures were a continuation of the revolution triggered by Bouzazzi’s self-immolation. Painting himself a man of the people, he railed against nameless “lobbyists and their supporters” who thwart the people’s ambitions.

However, while many Tunisians have been cowed into silence by Saied’s crackdown, they have also refused to take part in elections, now little more than a procession for the president.

In 2014, during the country’s first post-revolution presidential election, about 61 percent of the country’s voters turned out to vote.

By last year’s election, turnout had halved.

“Kais Saied’s authoritarian rule has definitively buried the hopes and aspirations of the 2011 revolution by systematically crushing fundamental rights and freedoms and putting democratic institutions under his thumb,” Bassam Khawaja, deputy director at Human Rights Watch, told Al Jazeera English.

In the wake of the revolution, many across Tunisia became activists, seeking to involve themselves in forging what felt like a new national identity.

The number of civil society organisations exploded, with thousands forming to lobby against corruption or promote human rights, transitional justice, press freedom and women’s rights.

At the same time, political shows competed for space, debating the direction the country’s new identity would take.

Tunisian President Saied attends a ceremony with President Xi Jinping in China [ingshu Wang/Getty Images]

“It was an amazing time,” a political analyst who witnessed the revolution and remains in Tunisia said, asking to remain anonymous. “Anybody with anything to say was saying it.

“Almost overnight, we had hundreds of political parties and thousands of civil society organisations. Many of the political parties shifted or merged… but Tunisia retained an active civil society, as well as retaining freedom of speech all the way up to 2022.”

Threatened by Saied’s Decree 54 of 2022, which criminalised any electronic communication deemed by the government as false, criticism of the ruling elite within the media and even on social networks has largely been muzzled.

“Freedom of speech was one of the few lasting benefits of the revolution,” the analyst continued.

“The economy failed to pick up, services didn’t really improve, but we had debate and freedom of speech. Now, with Decree 54, as well as commentators just being arrested for whatever reason, it’s gone.”

In 2025, both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch slammed Tunisia’s crackdown on activists and nongovernmental organisations (NGOs).

In a statement before the prosecution of six NGO workers and human rights defenders working for the Tunisian Council for Refugees in late November, Amnesty pointed to the 14 Tunisian and international NGOs that had their activities suspended by court order over the previous four months.

Included were the Tunisian Association of Democratic Women, the Tunisian Forum for Social and Economic Rights, the media platform Nawaat and the Tunis branch of the World Organisation against Torture.

‘Plotting against state security’

Dozens of political figures from post-revolution governments have also been arrested, with little concern for party affiliation or ideology.

In April 2023, 84-year-old Rached Ghannouchi, leader of what had been Tunisia’s main political bloc, the Ennahdha Party, was arrested on charges of “plotting against state security”.

According to his daughter, Yusra, after a series of subsequent convictions, Ghannouchi currently faces a further 42 years in jail.

Later the same year, Ghannouchi’s principal critic, Abir Moussi, the leader of the Free Destourian Party, was jailed on a variety of charges.

Critics dismiss the charges, saying the criteria for arrest have been the person’s potential to rally opinion against Saied.

“This is not just the case for my father,” Yusra continued, referring to others, such as the leading post-coup opposition figure Jawhar Ben Mubarak.

“Other politicians, judges, journalists, and ordinary citizens … have been sentenced to very heavy sentences, without any evidence, without any respect for legal procedures, simply because Tunisia has now sadly been taken back to the very same dictatorship against which Tunisians had risen in 2010.”

The head of Tunisia’s Ennahdha, Rached Ghannouchi, greets supporters upon arrival at a police station in Tunis on February 21, 2023, in compliance with the summons of an investigating judge [Fethi Belaid/AFP]

Ghannouchi and Moussi, along with dozens of former elected lawmakers, remain in jail. The political parties that once vied for power in the country’s parliament are largely absent.

In their place, since Saied’s revised 2022 constitution weakened parliament, is a body that is no longer a threat to the president.

“The old parliament was incredibly fractious, and did itself few favours,” said Hatem Nafti, essayist and author of Our Friend Kais Saied, a book criticising Tunisia’s new regime. He was referring to the ammunition provided to its detractors by a chaotic and occasionally violent parliament.

“However, it was democratically elected and blocked legislation that its members felt would harm Tunisia.

“In the new parliament, members feel the need to talk tough and even be rude to ministers,” Nafti continued. “But it’s really just a performance… Nearly all the members are there because they agree with Kais Saied.”

Hopes that the justice system might act as a check on Saied have faltered. The president has continued to remodel the judiciary to a design of his own making, including by sacking 57 judges for not delivering verdicts he wanted in 2022.

By the 2024 elections, that effort appeared complete, with the judicial opposition to his rule that remained, in the shape of the administrative court, rendered subservient to his personally appointed electoral authority, and the most serious rivals for the presidency jailed.

“The judiciary is now almost entirely under the government’s control,“ Nafti continued. “Even under [deposed President Zine El Abidine] Ben Ali you had the CSM [Supreme Judicial Council], which oversaw judges’ appointments, promotions, and disciplinary matters.

“Now that only exists on paper, with the minister of justice able to determine precisely what judges go where and what judgements they’ll deliver.”

Citing what he said is the “shameful silence of the international community that once supported the country’s democratic transition”, Khawaja said: ”Saied has returned Tunisia to authoritarian rule.”

A protest against Saied on fourth years after his power grab. Tunis, July 25, 2025 [Jihed Abidellaoui/Reuters]



SOURCE PAGE

South Africa has accused the US of using Kenyan nationals who did not have work permits at a facility processing applications by white South Africans for refugee status.

Seven Kenyans were arrested after intelligence reports revealed that people “had recently entered South Africa on tourist visas and had illegally taken up work” at the centre, said a statement from South Africa’s department of home affairs.

The BBC has approached the US State Department for comment.

While the US is trying to reduce overall levels of migration, it says that members of South Africa’s white Afrikaner community can get asylum because they face persecution – a claim South Africa’s government strongly rejects.

The US has reduced its yearly intake of refugees from around the world from 125,000 to 7,500, but says it will prioritise Afrikaners, who are mostly descendants of Dutch and French settlers.

This is one of the issues that have caused a sharp deterioration in relations between South Africa and the Trump administration.

South Africa says the Kenyan nationals arrested in Tuesday’s raid will now be deported and will be banned from entering the country for five years.

They had previously been denied work visas but were found “engaging in work despite only being in possession of tourist visas, in clear violation of their conditions of entry into the country”, the statement said.

South Africa also expressed concern that foreign officials appeared to have coordinated with undocumented workers and said it had reached out to the US and Kenya to resolve the matter.

The home affairs department said the raid showcased the commitment that South Africa shared “with the United States to combating illegal immigration and visa abuse in all its forms”.

No US officials were arrested and the operation was not at a diplomatic site, it said.

While the State Department is yet to respond to the BBC’s request for comment, in a statement issued to US publications, Tommy Pigott, principal deputy spokesperson for the State Department, said the department was “seeking immediate clarification from the South African government” on the issue and expected “full cooperation and accountability”.

“Interfering in our refugee operations in unacceptable,” US publication The Hill quoted Pigott saying.

The processing of applications by white South Africans is being done by two companies, RSC Africa and Amerikaners, according to the US embassy in South Africa.

RSC Africa is a Kenyan-based refugee support centre operated by Church World Service (CWS) while Amerikaners is a South African platform aimed at providing information to white South Africans interested in the US resettlement offer.

US President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that Afrikaners are being subjected to a “genocide” in South Africa, even though there is no evidence that white farmers are more likely to be the victims of crime than their black counterparts.

He offered Afrikaners refugee status earlier this year after South African President Cyril Ramaphosa signed a law allowing the government to seize land without compensation in rare instances.

Because of the legacy of the racist apartheid system, the majority of privately owned farmland in South Africa is owned by the white community and South Africa’s government is under pressure to provide more land to black farmers. However, it stresses that no land has yet been seized under the new law.

South Africa has repeatedly tried to mend fences with the Trump administration, most famously when Ramaphosa led a high-level delegation to the White House earlier this year.

However, this backfired when Trump ambushed him with images, videos and news reports allegedly showing that the government was persecuting white people.

One video featured firebrand South African opposition figure Julius Malema singing: “Shoot the Boer [Afrikaner], Shoot the farmer”.

However, a South African court has ruled that this song, which Malema often chants at his political rallies, is not hate speech.

Last month, the US boycotted the G20 summit in South Africa and has said it would not invite South African officials to its meetings since it took over leadership of the grouping of the world’s biggest economies.

Additional reporting by Mayeni Jones

SOURCE PAGE