Israel intensifies strikes on Hezbollah’s missile sites, preparing for potential conflict with Iran and reducing the group’s threat capacity.
Israel’s latest strikes in Lebanon are not just another round in the slow-burning shadow war with Hezbollah. They are part of something larger: an effort to ensure that if the US – or Israel – strikes Iran, Tehran’s most powerful proxy will not be able to carry out the mission it was built for.
For decades, Hezbollah has served as Iran’s forward deterrent against Israel, with an arsenal amassed on Israel’s northern border designed to unleash massive rocket and missile fire in the event Iran’s nuclear facilities or regime come under attack. That strategic logic has not changed. What has changed is Israel’s determination to degrade that capability before a wider confrontation begins.
On Friday, Israel carried out strikes deep in the Bekaa Valley, which – according to Lebanese officials – killed at least 10 people and eliminated several Hezbollah missile-unit commanders.
This fits into a pattern that has intensified over the past month: sustained IDF action targeting long-range missile sites, command centers, and Hezbollah’s efforts to rebuild military infrastructure. These strikes, Israeli officials acknowledge, are meant to disrupt the group’s readiness and force build-up, including missile units planning future attacks on Israel.
The timing is telling. A similar surge in Israeli activity took place late last May, just weeks before the June 2025 war with Iran. Then, as now, Israel appeared intent on degrading Hezbollah’s capabilities before events elsewhere triggered escalation.
Hezbollah did not launch a missile barrage during the 12-Day War
What makes that comparison particularly relevant now is what happened next – or rather, what did not happen.
Despite longstanding Israeli assumptions that any attack on Iran would automatically trigger massive rocket fire from Lebanon, Hezbollah did not launch a sustained missile barrage during the 12-day war – the feared all-out northern front never materialized.
Why Hezbollah stayed restrained remains debated. One explanation is that the group had little appetite for inviting Israeli attacks that could have further degraded its military infrastructure, already devastated during the Israel-Hamas War.
Another explanation concerns domestic pressure. Lebanon is economically shattered and politically fragile. A decision to unleash massive rocket barrages in the service of Iran – one that would have invited heavy retaliation from Israel – could have triggered sharp backlash from Lebanese political leaders and large segments of the public asking why the country should again be dragged into a war not its own.
Whatever the mix of considerations, the restraint was notable. There is no guarantee, however, that those same calculations will hold this time, especially if the Iranian regime believes it is facing a do-or-die moment.
The Iranians appear not to be taking any chances with Hezbollah this time.
Arab media reports suggest Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps personnel are operating inside Lebanon and advising Hezbollah on operational planning. If Tehran concludes that its core assets are under threat, it may decide that its northern lever must be activated – and reportedly has personnel on the ground to ensure orders to do so are implemented.
The tempo of Israeli strikes
That possibility helps explain the tempo of Israeli strikes.
January alone saw 87 Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon – more than double December’s number and the highest number since the ceasefire went into effect in November 2024 – with roughly half targeting infrastructure north of the Litani River, Hezbollah’s operational heartland, according to the Alma Research and Education Center.
February has also seen intense action, including drone strikes, artillery fire, and targeted eliminations. The campaign appears designed to reduce Hezbollah’s ability to launch large-scale fire if ordered to do so.
Lebanon’s internal political landscape adds another layer of complexity.
President Joseph Aoun has called for international intervention to halt Israeli strikes, warning that Lebanon’s involvement in a wider war would have devastating consequences. Prime Minister Nawaf Salam has described the current situation as a “one-sided war of attrition.” Influential Lebanese political figures are reportedly urging neutrality, concerned that Hezbollah could drag the country into a regional war not of its choosing.
That tension strikes at the core of Hezbollah’s domestic narrative. The group portrays itself as the “defender of Lebanon.” But if it launches massive rocket barrages in response to an Iran-related escalation – prompting extensive Israeli retaliation – that image would fracture, and the organization’s legitimacy inside Lebanon would be dented.
Israeli officials have indicated that escalation would not remain confined to tit-for-tat exchanges. In past confrontations, such dynamics have expanded beyond individual launch sites to broader strikes against Hezbollah’s military infrastructure, with the risk that Lebanese infrastructure could be hit as well.
Israel’s overall posture toward Lebanon since October 7 has changed dramatically. As Brig.-Gen. Yuval Gez, commander of the IDF’s 91st Division, told leaders of northern communities last week: “Our responsibility is not only to respond, but to anticipate, initiate and defend.”
He said the IDF was prepared for “various scenarios,” with forces deployed along the entire border and deep into Lebanese territory. The language suggests preparation not only for deterrence, but for rapid escalation.
The central question is whether Hezbollah will once again remain on the sidelines if confrontation erupts between Israel and Iran, or whether Tehran will decide that this is the moment to activate the asset it has invested billions of dollars in building up precisely for this purpose.
Israel’s current strategy is designed to shape that decision before it is made. By degrading missile units, targeting command centers, and keeping up the military pressure, Jerusalem is seeking to ensure that even if Hezbollah chooses to fire, its capacity to damage is reduced.
It is also sending a message to the organization that if it acts on Iran’s orders, the consequences will be devastating.
One thing is clear: Israel is no longer assuming that last year’s restraint will hold. If Tehran pulls the Hezbollah lever this time, Jerusalem is working to ensure that there will be far less force behind it.
Great Britain have claimed a second gold medal at the 2026 Winter Olympics after Huw Nightingale and Charlotte Bankes won the mixed team snowboard cross event.
Javier Zanetti lived out his dreams as a player, lifting 16 trophies in an Inter Milan career that spanned a record 858 appearances, winning 145 caps for Argentina, and earning a reputation as one of the best defensive players of his generation.
Claudio Braga and Stephen Kingsley were on target as resurgent Hearts won 2-0 away to misfiring Falkirk to move six points clear at the top of the William Hill Premiership.
Former Arsenal midfielder Aaron Ramsey has offered a £15,000 reward for the safe return of his missing dog, Halo, who disappeared earlier this month in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.
The 10-year-old beagle was wearing a GPS tracker at the time of her disappearance, but the device stopped transmitting shortly after she went missing.
Ramsey originally offered £7,500 for information leading to Halo’s return, later doubling the sum to £15,000 in a renewed plea for help. “We are completely heartbroken,” he wrote on Instagram, alongside pictures of Halo with his family. “She’s a huge part of our lives, and we just want her home. Please, if anyone has seen her or knows anything, contact us.”
His wife, Colleen Ramsey, has also spoken of the family’s distress, saying they are “desperate for answers” and fear they may never find out what happened.
The disappearance has prompted local coverage and assistance from residents and animal welfare groups in Guanajuato, though no confirmed sightings have been reported. Ramsey’s club have allowed him time away from training while he deals with what those close to him describe as a “deeply upsetting” ordeal.
Ramsey joined Pumas UNAM earlier this year after leaving Cardiff City, returning to top-flight football abroad following a distinguished career that included over 350 appearances for Arsenal and key roles in three FA Cup triumphs.
Despite the footballer’s public appeals and the sizeable reward on offer, Halo remains missing, and the Ramseys have urged anyone in Mexico with information to come forward.
We finally have a release date for Mouse: P.I. for Hire. The delightfully animated game, which marks Troy Baker’s first time playing a rodent private eye, is slated for March 19, 2026.
Based on its trailers, you’d be forgiven for viewing Mouse: P.I. for Hire as Cuphead meets Doom. Although it does include FPS action, Engadget’s Jessica Conditt discovered surprising depth behind its whimsical brutality. The game “has more to offer than shock-value cartoon violence,” she wrote. “This is a clue-gathering, photo-snapping, girlfriend-avenging, noir detective simulator that happens to star a bunch of slick-talking mice and rats, and I’m fully into it.”
Baker plays Private Investigator Jack Pepper, the game’s protagonist. When he isn’t hunting clues or sneaking around during the game’s quieter moments, he’ll have a delightful arsenal on hand. This includes wacky ones like a turpentine gun that melts the inked “skin” of your foes. Fun stuff.
Like Cuphead, Mouse‘s most obvious point of comparison, it uses hand-drawn frames to recreate that old-school style. It also deploys an original jazz soundtrack recorded by an orchestral ensemble. It’s all presented in a gritty, film noir aesthetic.
You can check out the release date trailer below. Mouse: P.I. for Hire will launch next March on PC, Switch 2, Switch, PS5/4, Xbox Series X/S and Xbox One.
Maxi Boch isn’t done with Baby Steps. Boch has enjoyed a productive career in game development and she knows how it feels to be creatively finished with a project. She experienced it at various points with Rock Band, Dance Central, Fantasia: Music Evolved and Ape Out, but on Baby Steps’ launch day, done was not the vibe.
“I’ve been in the industry for a long time; I shipped broken strumbars for Rock Band,” Boch told Engadget. “I know that things change over time in this world, and it’s not to say that Baby Steps is not done. It’s done. But whether I’m done with Baby Steps, this is a different story.”
To make a long one short: Boch’s collaborators, Bennett Foddy and Gabe Cuzzillo, were ready and excited to ship the game before she was, and so they did. Baby Steps hit PC and PlayStation 5 on September 23, 2025 (following one strategic delay to avoid the Hollow Knight: Silksong release window).
From the player’s side, Baby Steps feels like a finely honed experience. It’s a walking simulator that follows Nate, a manchild in a gray onesie, as he attempts to scale a mountain and symbolically escape his parents’ basement. The player controls Nate’s legs individually, lifting each knee and carefully placing one foot in front of the other, learning how to walk in the very literal sense. Baby Steps succeeds because of its mechanical precision, but it excels because of its irreverent tone, magically surreal setting and AAA levels of polish. The mountain is a mix of childhood memories and adult anxieties represented by giant chess pieces, rude graffiti, and a crew of drinking, smoking, anthropomorphic donkeys who wander the cliffs with their dicks swinging free. Improvised dialogue between Nate and the NPCs turns each cutscene into a comedy sketch, but his journey also includes shocking revelations of existential numbness.
In Baby Steps, falling is just as much of a mechanic as walking. You will fall — dramatically, drastically, down crevasses that took hours to climb — and Nate will bounce and slide and eventually just lay there, mumbling to himself while his onesie fills with mud. And then you’ll pick him back up and start walking again. You’ll settle his steps into a soothing cadence. You’ll marvel at the way his sweat slowly saturates the material at the base of his spine, just above his bulbous butt. You’ll try to skip a cutscene and realize that in order to do so, you need to play a minigame with the X prompt. You’ll learn how to run. And somewhere along the way, you’ll remember what it feels like to just enjoy play.
Baby Steps
(Devolver Digital)
As a former marching band member, I appreciate the sense of rhythm that’s built into Baby Steps, spurred by the animal sounds and natural-world musical cues that are tied to Nate’s footfall in specific areas. This is Boch’s area of expertise, and also the main reason she doesn’t feel finished with the game. Boch and her collaborators ended up using a slapdash mosaic of audio middleware and low-level software for Baby Steps, and a series of late-stage issues infused all of the songs in the game with incorrect samples. On launch day, the music and audio cues weren’t reacting as intended when Nate stepped, stumbled and fell.
On September 23, the day that Baby Steps came out, Boch and I talked for an hour about its development process. Our conversation gently circled the topic of perseverance, the game’s core theme, but we only directly acknowledged it at minute 59. It’s not something you need to scream or repeat — tenacity is the obvious message in a game about climbing a mountain on wobbly feet — but it was fascinating to learn why Boch in particular was inspired to build a game about endurance.
Making Baby Steps
Boch, Foddy and Cuzzillo started working on Baby Steps right after they released Ape Out and cemented their names in the annals of frenetic, bloody and slightly silly indie history. Foddy was already known as the creator of QWOP, GIRP and Getting Over It, and Boch as the rhythmic and hardware mastermind behind the largest AAA music games of the mid-2000s. The trio worked out of Boch and Foddy’s shared office at the NYU Game Center, where they were instructors and Cuzzillo was finishing up a graduate degree with Ape Out as his final project. They began prototyping Baby Steps around March 2019.
“At that point, I also started manifesting more symptoms of my chronic illness, and so I was in the midst of a period of an attempt at really intense reconditioning, which ultimately failed,” Boch said. “But when that period was over, I joined up with the crew again.”
Boch lives with a trifecta of chronic illnesses: Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome and Mast Cell Activation Syndrome. EDS is a connective tissue disorder that affects the entire body, and it can cause hypermobility, fatigue, vision issues, fragile skin and an increased risk of vascular ruptures. People with POTS experience an abnormally large increase in heart rate when changing posture, and MCAS is a disorder that releases excessive amounts of histamine and similar chemicals in the body, causing random and potentially life-threatening allergic reactions. It’s common for people with one of these diagnoses to also receive the others.
“It’s been an incredible challenge,” Boch said. “I think, easily, the hardest thing I’ve had to deal with in my life. I think there’s something very singular about each one of us, the three core members of this crew, and part of that is our ability to work fluidly across disciplines and the like. But another part of it is just a level of stick-to-it-iveness that my body has handily rejected, and so I’m in a fight with it all the time.”
Baby Steps
(Devolver Digital)
Boch has an arsenal of specialized tools to help her create games, including ergonomic (and very expensive) keyboards and a pair of glasses that act as a mouse.
“I have found that most of what game development is about and is oriented around is kind of hostile to those of us with poor fine-motor skills, and it’s an odd thing to be experiencing alongside the making of a thing that is stridently difficult,” Boch said. “There’s odd moments in it, where I have been going through physical therapy processes to retrain my actual walking, alongside working on this thing that is deconstructing walking. A very odd subset of feelings.”
Boch said the hardest thing for her to contend with is the moment-to-moment unpredictability of her health. But by the fall of 2019, she was back in the office with Cuzzillo and Foddy, iterating on the ideas that would eventually become Baby Steps. Cuzzillo and Foddy were feeling slightly discouraged at this point: They were four or five ideas deep, messing around with a competitive, real-time strategy game or a SimCity type of experience, but nothing was quite right. Boch encouraged them to return to their ridiculous, mechanically-driven roots.
“I think it started to become a lot clearer in everyone’s mind when it started to take on aspects of Bennett’s work,” Boch said. “The first handful of years of Baby Steps’ development, we were all playing various sorts of roles. The work of VO direction, recording and narrative development was something we were all working on together. Some of the foundational narrative premise things are concepts that I brought to the table as ways to try and prop up some world around this character. Lots of tools building and infrastructural work and all of the foundational stuff that makes it possible for a team that’s so tiny to make a thing that’s so strong.”
The Baby Steps crew shared a house in upstate New York during the first winter of the pandemic in 2020. They hiked together and worked on the game at one big folding table, enjoying the mountain air with their partners and each other. There were no strict roles on the game development side, with Boch, Cuzzillo and Foddy contributing to all aspects at once, including voice work.
“Over time, there are aspects of the narrative development that became increasingly more personal to my collaborators,” Boch said. “And they started to feel more comfortable in a director-less environment in terms of coaxing naturalistic performances out of themselves, and so that work became more disjointed.”
By the time they were recording voices and finding characters through improvisation in the sound booth, Boch happened to be in the early stages of transitioning. Vocal training and voice acting are a tricky mix, it turns out.
“I kind of recognized what it was going to take to be doing voiceover performance myself in the midst of my early transition, and I made the call that it was not the right activity for me,” Boch said. “So my characters were cut — it was like one or two — and I endeavored to strike up some novel collaborations on the audio side.”
For the past year and half in particular, Boch has been focused on all things audio in Baby Steps, as well as overseeing big-picture production tasks. She brought on a collaborator from the world of hardcore techno music, Jack Schlesinger, and he primarily handled system architecture details while Boch dealt with creative aspects. DJ Ashe Kilbourne and harpist Emily Hopkins rounded out the list of audio contributors. When she was able, Boch took an improvised sound kit into the wild and collected nature noises, and the team stitched together a reactive audio system using middleware and leftover bits of software from the Harmonix days.
When Baby Steps’ dynamic audio kicks in, and the boops, chirps and thunks start layering on top of one another as Nate waddles along, it adds a delicious sense of hypnosis to the game. Unfortunately, the audio systems fell apart in the final weeks before launch. The VO was fine, but many of the sounds and beats weren’t populating in the right places at the proper times, and Boch’s vision wasn’t being clearly communicated day-one.
“The foundations of game audio tooling are terrible,” Boch said. She continued, “The world of game audio, from my perspective, is a bunch of people who are sitting on top of a bunch of work they’ve done to write drivers to talk to consoles, and a bunch of work they’ve done to forge relationships with console manufacturers so that their audio technology will be licensed by the two major engines. But they’re both trash. I will not endorse either one, and I will not say that either one is capable of doing the kind of work that I need done.”
Since launch, the Baby Steps audio team has released patches addressing the sampling issues and adjusting dynamic audio cues across the game. An imminent update will introduce animals singing along with the songs, outdoor and indoor reverb simulations across all sounds, and other fixes. Boch has additional updates and surprises planned, including a Baby Steps Fi Beats livestream to showcase the game’s music on YouTube. By November, the audio team will be focused on composing.
Baby Steps is only going to get more immersive as the audio improvements roll out. And if you listen closely, you’ll be able to hear Boch voicing a few small roles throughout the game.
“I play, like, a baby and a hypothetical gay partner for Nate and a bunch of other random characters,” Boch said. “There’s some cosmic sadness on my part, that the timing worked out in exactly the ways that it did. But I don’t know, it’s the cards you’re dealt. It’s important to do the thing that’s true to you.”
One glaring truth that shook out during the Baby Steps development process was the supremely close and infectious bond between Cuzzillo and Foddy. The game’s dialogue and cutscenes are composed of off-the-cuff conversations and rambling inside jokes between Cuzzillo and Foddy, and each of these moments is delightful in a chaotic kind of way. Like a classic comedy duo, these developers share an undeniable resonance. They’re even born on the same day and they have older brothers with the same birthday, two facts that Boch finds adorable.
“I’m not a horoscope person at all, but they have a kind of cosmic level of synchronicity that they both acknowledge, but also are a little bit like, ‘What, this?’” Boch said. “They have plenty that they disagree about and plenty that they bicker about, but there’s something about their orientations toward the world that’s perplexing and generative. They are immensely talented folks.”
Taking Baby Steps
In the end, Cuzzillo and Foddy felt finished with Baby Steps before Boch. She didn’t want to hold their joy hostage, so the audio team made it work and they shipped the game on September 23, 2025, published by Devolver Digital.
“That kind of dream-deferred shit is emotional torture, and so I had no interest in putting them through that, they had no interest in going through that,” Boch said. “It makes sense to me to be landing in the place that we are.”
Baby Steps
(Devolver Digital)
I caught up with Boch three weeks after Baby Steps’ release date to see if she was feeling more done, now that the launch-day dust had settled. She said it was a hard question.
“There is so much more that I am interested in exploring, and so much more that I have set up in terms of pins to knock down,” she said. “I think this is a struggle that highlights the inherent tension of trying to make art at this boundary between a fine art practice and a commercial art practice. I think that for the sake of the work, and for the sake of me and my team as artists, the tech I have built deserves to continue to be refined in a different context, one wherein sound is more paramount. That’s where we’re headed.”
This is a tease of what’s next for Boch, even though she’s still finishing up Baby Steps. She’s planning on leaving NYU, spurred by the unpredictability of her health, but she’s not done making games. Her next one will be more personal.
“It’s important to me to share what I’m doing with people,” Boch said in September. “I think that there is not enough in the world of games that puts audio at its very center. I think that my personal ambitions and future ambitions are definitely leaning more in that direction by the day. I had a long time of needing to get some space from interactive audio as The Thing. Where my winds are blowing is in that direction.”
Baby Steps exists in its current form because Boch and her teammates were able to adapt and endure. They were honest about what was working, what wasn’t and what could, and they leaned into the aspects that felt the most natural to them. Boch in particular set aside her ego, listened to her body, and took things day by day. You know, baby steps.
“The process of transition is one that involves an enormous amount of self-reflection and a growing sense of self knowledge,” Boch said. “Ultimately, that process for me was kind of orthogonal to the storytelling of Baby Steps. There’s a lot that comes from lived experience, and from commiserating and sharing that lived experience between Bennett and Gabe, and you can see that very clearly in the work. There’s also just ways in which that process was illuminating to me in terms of inherent differences. There’s an aspect of it that came alongside the necessity of slowing down, and then the subsequent necessity of staying inside that hit with my chronic illness and then Covid. There was a way in which I was more with myself at that moment than I’ve ever been.”
Golden State Warriors star Steph Curry speaks exclusively to Sky Sports to discuss 2027 free agency
Golden State Warriors superstar Steph Curry has opened up on his plans for free agency in 2027 after admitting situations change “really fast” in the NBA.
The prospect of Curry, a two-time league MVP and 11-time All-Star, playing for any franchise other than The Dubs is a strange one.
After being drafted with the seventh overall pick in 2009, Curry has gone on to revolutionise the game of basketball, helping himself to four championships, one finals MVP and the NBA record for most three-pointers made with 4,058 to add to his overall tally of 25,386 points.
All while wearing No 30 for the Warriors.
4 x NBA champion
2 x NBA MVP
2022 NBA Finals MVP
11 x NBA All-Star
2 x NBA All-Star MVP
11 x All-NBA Team selection
2024 NBA Clutch Player of the Year
2 x NBA Three-Point Content champion
Most three-pointers made in NBA history
Curry signed a one-year extension with the team in 2024, worth a reported £47.5m ($62.6m) and ending growing speculation around his future in the process, keeping him in San Francisco until 2027.
Two years from now, when that deal expires, the greatest shooter of all time will be 39.
After averaging just under 25 points, six assists, and over four rebounds in his 16th season, as well as longevity being more prominent than ever in the league, it is clear to see that his time in the NBA is far from over.
But could the next chapter in his illustrious career lie away from Chase Center? Do not rule it out.
“What I have learned about this league is that things change really fast,” Curry told Sky Sports while discussing Underrated Golf, a programme set up by the point guard to break down barriers to entry and increase diversity in the game of golf.
Underrated Golf is an initiative led by Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry to create a pathway into the sport for young athletes from underrepresented communities.
The programme aims to break down barriers in the game of golf to give prospects a level playing field, in a bid to create a more inclusive and accessible environment for young golfers.
“What you might feel like in two years from now could be totally different. I try to stay in the moment as much as possible; it’s not the glitziest answer but it allows me to enjoy what is happening now.
“I do want to play for only one team, let’s keep that pretty clear. Being at the Warriors has been unbelievable and I feel blessed to have only played for one franchise and to have accomplished what we have.
“So if I could have the best of both worlds and continue to be championship relevant over the next couple of years, that would be great but this league is wild. You kind of just stay in the moment.”
Despite a decision on his future looming as we approach 2027, Curry’s full focus remains on securing more success with the team he holds so dear to his heart in the upcoming 2025/26 season.
The arrival of six-time All-Star Jimmy Butler in February has shown early signs of promise after the Warriors reached the Western Conference semi-finals last time out, only to be denied the opportunity to show their title-winning credentials following a Grade 1 hamstring strain for Curry in game one against the Minnesota Timberwolves.
A 4-1 defeat in the series would follow but heading into 2025/26, the roster has been bolstered by a new two-year deal for Jonathan Kuminga, as well as the arrival of 2024 NBA champion Al Horford,to run alongside long-term teammate Draymond Green in the frontcourt.
Golden State Warriors forward Jimmy Butler (left) Stephen Curry (centre) and forward Draymond Green (right)
With Curry now back to full fitness and fresh depth surrounding him, the intentions from the Warriors have been clear from pre-season.
The Dubs are 3-1 in games Curry has featured in, beating the Los Angeles Lakers and the Portland Trail Blazers twice, with attention now turning to the season opener against the Lakers on October 21, live on Sky Sports.
When asked what aspects of the game still motivate a player who has already achieved so much in the sport as we approach a new 82-game season, Curry added: “I talk about championships, and that drive – it allows every part of the journey to matter.
“Even in the off-season, how you prepare for the year, come in and try and build chemistry with your teammates and how you get through the emotional rollercoaster of an 82-game season.
“All of that is built into being at your peak come playoff time in April.
Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry during the pre-season game against the Los Angeles Clippers
“Individual accolades take care of themselves. When you win, everybody is rewarded. As long as I’m taking care of championship motivation, everything else takes care of itself. Whether you win or not, you just lay it all out there.
“We have a brand new team again. We’ll all try and stay healthy and try and get to the finish line. That’s our goal.”
The Warriors have won seven championships in total across their 78-year history, with Curry leading them to more than half of that total.
If the franchise is to add an eighth banner to the rafters in 2026, their point guard will be the man to lead them there.
His powers at the highest level are showing no signs are waning, with the 37-year-old looking to replicate the successes of the likes of LeBron James and Kevin Durant by “redefining” what it is to be playing at a high level towards the latter stages of their respective careers.
“I feel like I’ve got some good basketball ahead of me. I’m trying to redefine what it is to be playing at a high level at this age,” said Curry when the question of his timeline leading the roster was posed.
“I still love the work that goes into it and playing the game; hopefully, that will carry me. I don’t want to put any limits on it.”
Watch the Golden State Warriors against the Los Angeles Lakers live on Sky Sports + on October 21, tip-off 3am UK time.
Bose took a different approach with its new products in 2025. Instead of entirely redesigning its QuietComfort Ultra lineup, the company unveiled upgraded second-generation models of the flagship-level earbuds and headphones. Like the QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds that debuted earlier this year, the new Quiet Comfort Ultra headphones ($449) don’t offer a comprehensive overhaul. However, the changes provide enough performance improvements to further cement these as the best noise-canceling headphones that you can buy right now. Trust me, we’re much better off with this revamped version than we would be with a year (or longer) wait for something brand new with the 2023 model.
Bose/Engadget
The best noise-canceling headphones are even better with improved ANC, enhanced sound and more efficient power usage.
Bose debuted a few new features on the second-gen QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds in August that it carried over to these new headphones. First, the company improved its already stellar active noise cancelation (ANC) with tweaks to its ActiveSense technology. Specifically, the system can respond to sudden spikes in environmental noise by adapting more precisely. It’s not something you’ll notice all the time, but when you need it, you’ll be glad it’s there. Otherwise, the excellent ANC performance here is just as effective as it was on the previous model. More on that in a bit.
The immersive Cinema Mode that Bose added to the QC Ultra Earbuds is also available on these headphones. It’s a sound profile that enhances dialogue clarity while keeping the rest of the soundstage as wide and enveloping as possible. I like it best for movies and TV, as the name suggests, but per Bose’s suggestion I also tried it with podcasts and audiobooks. Cinema Mode is probably overkill for those types of content, unless you’re listening to shows or titles with lots of background effects.
One of the biggest changes on the second-gen QC Ultra Headphones is how Bose decided to handle power management. Most importantly, the company extended battery life in all use cases. With ANC on (and Immersive Audio off), you’ll get up to 30 hours of listening time. Turn off ANC and that jumps to 45 hours. When you decide to enable both ANC and Bose’s spatial Immersive Audio, you can expect up to 23 hours on a charge. Compared to those on the first-generation model, all of these numbers are up by at least five hours, which is a significant boost.
These headphones rotate flat and fold in for compact transport.
(Billy Steele for Engadget)
Like the previous QC Ultra Headphones, this model has an automatic disconnection feature after 10 minutes of standby . But the company went a step further on this version by adding a low-power mode that the headphones enter after 30 minutes of idle time. And if you want to disconnect them quickly, you can rotate the earcups and lay them on a flat surface. That’ll make them go into a deeper standby mode that Bose says can run “for months.” All of this means you can effectively turn the new QuietComfort Ultra Headphones on and off by putting them on and taking them off. If you’re using them regularly, you’ll never have to press the power button.
Sound-wise, the big upgrade on these headphones is the addition of lossless audio over USB-C. Like the AirPods Max, this model can be connected with a cable to your phone, tablet, laptop or desktop to stream or play higher-quality tunes from compatible services or your library. Bose says you can expect 16-bit 44.1kHz or 48kHz audio depending on your source. It’s yet another nice-to-have feature that’s becoming standard fare on premium wireless headphones.
What else is good about the QuietComfort Ultra Headphones?
Like most Bose over-ear headphones, the second-gen QuietComfort Ultra Headphones are supremely comfortable. Even for long periods of time, they never become a burden, and that’s thanks in large part to the soft, pillowy ear pads. I could easily wear these for an entire trans-Atlantic flight with minimal discomfort and I’ve been wearing them for entire workdays at home.
As I already mentioned, the ANC performance here is still top-tier. In fact, these QC Ultra Headphones will soon replace the first-gen model on our best noise-canceling headphones list. Both the Immersion (ANC + spatial audio) and Quiet (just ANC) modes provide robust noise blocking that surpasses those by Sony, Sennheiser and others. If you’re making your buying decision based solely on ANC performance, this is the best option. You’ll enjoy relief from constant ambient noise sources like fans and sound machines, plus the QC Ultra Headphones do a respectable job with human voices. Heck, I couldn’t even hear my dog barking at the imminent threat from falling leaves outside.
Lastly, Bose’s take on spatial audio is still quite good. The company calls it Immersive Audio and the feature doesn’t rely on specialized content like other headphones. Music sounds obviously fuller and slightly louder when the sound profile is active thanks to Bose’s method for upscaling stereo content. There’s also enhanced vocal clarity and elements like percussion and synths are less compressed than usual. The headphones lend a particularly airy feel to the tracks of Ruston Kelly’s Pale, Through the Window, an acoustic-driven collection of soulful, country-tinged tunes. His vocals float atop enveloping acoustic guitars and tight, punchy drums.
What’s not so good about the QC Ultra Headphones?
The Bose app gives you access to controls and customization.
(Billy Steele for Engadget)
The biggest issue with the second-gen QuietComfort Ultra Headphones is the price. To be clear, the likes of Sony, Apple and others charge around the same amount for their top-of-the-line models, but $449 is still a significant investment. If that’s too steep for you, Bose has the highly capable QuietComfort Headphones in its arsenal for a slightly more palatable $359.
My other gripe is that the only real design change Bose made for the updated QC Ultra Headphones is that the metal headband yokes now have a gloss finish. Depending on your personal preference, this might be a dealbreaker for you. It’s least noticeable on the black and violet colorways, since these have a tone-on-tone look. After a few weeks with the bronze and tan Driftwood Sand hue, I’m not a fan of the more stylized aesthetic. It’s flashy, for sure, but it’s a tweak I could’ve done without.
Wrap-up
Similar to the second-gen QC Ultra Earbuds over the summer, Bose didn’t make huge upgrades for the updated version of the QC Ultra Headphones. But what you do get here is a decent improvement over its predecessor. The company devised an intuitive setup for power management and even addressed one of my main gripes with the original by adding support for lossless audio over USB-C. Plus, the extended battery life is significant in all sound modes, and not just by an hour or two here or there. To top it all off, the QuietComfort Ultra Headphones remain the best option for pure noise-blocking ability, and that’s not likely to change any time soon.
Raila Odinga was one of Kenya’s most influential and enduring political figures despite five unsuccessful presidential bids.
For years, the firebrand politician emerged as a staunch campaigner and defender of multi-party democracy – adored by near-fanatical supporters and vilified by a threatened political elite.
Fondly known as “Baba”, meaning father, the veteran opposition leader died on Wednesday morning at the age of 80 in India, where he had been receiving treatment for an undisclosed illness.
His death not only marks the end of an era for a towering pan-Africanist, but also leaves a significant void in Kenya’s opposition as the country heads towards the 2027 elections.
Although Odinga came from a famous Kenyan family, the political crown eluded him throughout his decades-long career – just as it eluded his father, who served as vice-president after independence from the UK.
In 2022, Odinga made his fifth attempt at the presidency, having come closest to the top job in 2008 when he was appointed prime minister in a coalition government.
In February, he lost the race to lead the African Union Commission to Djibouti’s foreign affairs minister.
Despite his political misfortunes, Odinga remained a political force so influential that successive Kenyan presidents struggled to govern easily without his support.
Last year, President William Ruto reached out to Odinga for a political deal that saw opposition leaders appointed in the cabinet.
Four members of Odinga’s ODM party joined what is now known as a “broad-based” government.
The move was seen by many as Ruto’s attempt to solidify his hold on power amid increasing discontent with his administration over its perceived failure to improve the lives of poor people, while raising taxes heavily.
Odinga faced heavy criticism, especially from the young people behind last year’s anti-government protests, who accused him of betrayal. He insisted that he only “donated” experts to help the president “save” the country.
An avid football fan and supporter of English premier league club Arsenal, Odinga came from the Luo ethnic group – the fourth largest in Kenya.
He had a passionate following, and his adoring fans has nicknames for him like “Agwambo” (Act of God) and “Tinga” (Tractor) – drawn from his party symbol in the 1997 election.
His signature slow-motion dance to reggae tunes at rallies – popularly known as “The Raila Dance” – became widely imitated by many in social gatherings.
In the 2022 presidential election, Odinga chose former Justice Minister Martha Karua as his running mate. This was widely welcomed, as it was the first time a presidential front-runner had chosen a female deputy.
Odinga was seen as the political heir to his father, Jaramogi Odinga, who was Kenya’s first vice-president after independence, but walked out of the government in 1966 after falling out with then-leader Jomo Kenyatta, whose son, Uhuru, went on to become president after the advent of multi-party democracy in the East African nation.
Jaramogi Odinga favoured closer ties with the Soviet Union and China, while Jomo Kenyatta preferred an alliance with the US and other Western powers.
Their differences worsened, with Jaramogi Odinga imprisoned for 18 months until he was released in 1971.
Raila Odinga was also a former political prisoner, and holds the record for being Kenya’s longest-serving detainee.
His struggle against one-party dictatorship saw him detained twice (from 1982 to 1988 and 1989 to 1991) during the rule of Jomo Kenyatta’s successor, Daniel arap Moi.
He was initially imprisoned for trying to stage a coup in 1982, which propelled him on to the national stage.
After multi-party democracy was introduced a decade later, Odinga repeatedly failed in his attempt to win power, often saying he had been cheated of victory.
This led to one of the biggest political crises in Kenya’s history, when about 1,200 people died and thousands fled their homes after Odinga was convinced that then-President Mwai Kibaki stole the 2007 election.
After mediation talks led by former UN chief Kofi Annan, Odinga took the post of prime minister in a coalition government, but his relationship with Kibaki was marred by what he called “supremacy wars”.
In the 2017 election, he lost to Uhuru Kenyatta at the ballot box, but won in the Supreme Court, which nullified the result because of the widespread irregularities he had highlighted.
Odinga, however, boycotted the re-run, saying a level playing field had not been created.
This paved the way for the re-election of Kenyatta, while Odinga – reputed to be a master strategist and mass mobiliser – declared himself “the people’s president” at a huge rally in the capital, Nairobi.
His supporters heeded his call to boycott the large number of businesses owned by the Kenyatta family to show their anger at the president’s re-election.
The long-standing rivalry between Odinga and Kenyatta ended with a famous handshake in 2018. It culminated with Kenyatta backing Odinga’s final bid for the presidency in 2022.
Odinga was described as a dedicated pan-Africanist who criticised what he called neo-colonialism. He championed African unity, self-reliance and integration through the building of infrastructure like roads, serving as the African Union High Representative for Infrastructure Development from 2018 and 2023.
He was also appointed by the African Union (AU) to mediate in the 2010-2011 political crisis that broke out in Ivory Coast after then-President Laurent Gbagbo refused to give up power after losing to Alassane Ouattara in elections.
However, his efforts failed to resolve the stand-off, as Gbagbo rejected him as a mediator, accusing him of being biased towards Ouattara.
In his spare time, Odinga was seen in the gym, and taking walks in his neighbourhood in Nairobi, and in his village in Siaya in western Kenya.
He was born on 7 Januray 1945 in Maseno in Kisumu county, and studied in what was then East Germany, acquiring a master’s degree in mechanical engineering in 1970.
Odinga was married to Mama Ida and together they have four children – the late Fidel, Rosemary, Raila Junior and Winnie.
Fidel was named after Cuban leader Fidel Castro and Odinga once explained that he had chosen the name because his son was born at the height of the Cold War, and “Mr Castro was seen to be standing against the US in the Vietnam war”.
Odinga may have been critical of US foreign policy, but he championed the creation of a Western-style democracy in Kenya.
He will probably be best-remembered as one of the founding fathers of multi-party democracy in Kenya, even if he felt that the electoral system was so flawed that it denied him the opportunity to become president.
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[Getty Images/BBC]
Go to BBCAfrica.com for more news from the African continent.
Redemption Road’s absolutely bonkers-looking medieval shooter, Kingmakers, was slated to launch in Early Access on October 8, but now its release has been pushed back with no new date in sight. The developers posted an update on Steam to say that the scheduled launch, just days away, “will no longer be possible,” going on to explain that they need “a bit more time on content polish before we feel good about charging money for it.”
A statement posted by the developers of Kingmakers announcing that the game is delayed
(Redemption Road Games)
Kingmakers has generated a fair amount of hype since it was announced last year, and it sits among the top wishlisted titles on Steam. The game sends players “back in time to a war-torn medieval era with a vast arsenal of modern weapons,” from guns to tanks. And if you’ve seen the trailers, you know it’s not just the concept that’s bananas — the gameplay we’ve been shown so far is completely over the top. In its statement about the delay, the team said that Kingmakers is “an incredibly ambitious, uncompromising game, and we don’t want to cut any planned features, for the sake of getting it out the door earlier.”
“With Kingmakers, we set out to push the Unreal Engine 4 codebase to its absolute limits, while still providing true 60fps to midrange PCs, without the need for fake frames,” the team wrote. “We are an 80% engineering team, who got into this business to push technological barriers. We currently have tens of thousands of soldiers, each with AI and pathfinding that rivals what you’d expect from a AAA third person shooter. When you walk away from a battle, it continues to play out. Nothing is faked.”
The developers haven’t provided any update on what the timeline looks like now beyond the fact that the game won’t be ready for October 8. But, they added, “We will be presenting a half hour long deepdive on Kingmakers gameplay very soon, with a comprehensive overview of everything we’ve been working on.”
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian speaks during an interview in Tehran, Iran, August 28, 2025. (photo credit: IRAN
Snapback sanctions could collapse the Iranian economy as the Islamic Republic scrambles to rebuild its nuclear facilities
The European “E3” (United Kingdom, France, and Germany) initiated a 30-day countdown clock when they triggered the United Nations (UN) snapback on August 28—a step that would automatically reimpose the full suite of Security Council sanctions unless a last-minute accommodation is reached by September 27–28. From the UN rostrum this week, President Masoud Pezeshkian said, “Iran has never sought and will never seek to build a nuclear bomb.”
European leaders said only verifiable steps—restoring inspector access and addressing enrichment and monitoring gaps—can avert reimposition.
If the clock runs out, arms and missile restrictions and nuclear-related bans would return, complicating trade and diplomacy amid inflation and fiscal strain in Iran. UK and UN process briefs outline the August 28 notification and the 30-day window under the dispute-resolution process linked to the nuclear deal. Absent Security Council action that satisfies all veto holders, the pre-deal measures come back into force, and partners are expected to reapply the suspended sanctions.
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) figures made public in September show Iran held approximately 440.9 kilograms of 60%-enriched uranium as of June 13, keeping pressure high for restored monitoring and transparency.
While 60% is below weapons-grade, it materially shortens timelines and heightens concerns about access for inspectors. Separately, open-source imagery indicates Tehran is rebuilding missile-production sites damaged in June’s 12-day Iran–Israel war, though analysts note a bottleneck: the apparent absence of large planetary mixers needed for solid-fuel production—equipment whose absence could slow a full return of capacity even as other lines recover.
Mohammad Eslami, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), speaks at the opening of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) General Conference at the agency’s headquarters in Vienna, Austria, September 15, 2025. (credit: REUTERS/LISA LEUTNER)
On September 24, a Houthi drone struck Eilat, injuring about 20 people; Israel hit targets in Sanaa in response. The exchange shows how Gaza-linked tensions stretch from the Red Sea to the Eastern Mediterranean and how peripheral fronts can spike precisely as the snapback clock runs down.
Mohammad Alzghool, senior researcher and head of the Iranian Studies Unit at the Emirates Policy Center in Abu Dhabi, said, “The most likely scenario is that the European parties will move ahead with the snapback mechanism.” He argued that such a move would mean “the collapse of the nuclear deal as the overarching framework” and could “open the political landscape to escalation scenarios.”
He added a warning on the economy, stating, “The impact goes far beyond psychology—it risks pushing the economy toward collapse.” Alzghool said plausible cases include oil exports falling to about 700,000 barrels per day, worsening the fiscal deficit and weighing on growth, even if Tehran keeps some crude moving via discounting or gray-market channels.
Looking to diplomacy, Alzghool said, “The nuclear issue is no longer forcing the international community into immediate talks with Tehran.” He also predicted, “Rather than negotiating on the basis of an established framework, the international community may push Iran into comprehensive talks from scratch, without legal reference points.”
In his view, the dynamics since June reduced Iran’s leverage and increased the likelihood that any future process would demand deeper transparency on stockpiles and missiles.
From the UN General Assembly this week, Pezeshkian tied Iran’s posture to Gaza while reiterating that Tehran does not seek nuclear weapons. European capitals countered that verifiable steps—restored inspector access, clarity on stockpiles, and credible de-escalation—are the only way to halt snapback in the closing hours of the 30-day window.
Daniele Garofalo, an expert on terrorism and armed Islamist insurgent groups in the Middle East, said European debates often miscast the Houthis, noting, “They are not Yemen and not the internationally recognized government.” He added that the movement has leveraged the Palestinian cause to frame itself as a national defender while continuing to benefit from Iranian support, even as some of Tehran’s other partners have lost capacity. “It’s absurd that in 2025 I still have to explain that Yemen—the Yemeni government and the Yemeni army—is someone else,” he said.
On staying power, Garofalo pointed to a durable force structure—military, political, organizational, and governmental—that leaves the group, “In short, … not an actor that can be easily removed right now.” He said popular support in Shiite areas persists, and he described how identity politics and wartime mobilization sustain the movement even when battlefield costs rise.
Iranian financing network
Garofalo also described work-arounds that offset reduced direct Iranian financing, saying, “Even if direct Iranian financing has been interrupted—because of obvious difficulties—the Houthis have found alternative ways over the past year to sustain their military logistics.” He cited intelligence reporting of “collaboration with al-Shabab, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), and Somali piracy” in exchanges that sustain logistics, despite public denials. “AQAP denies this, but it is evident the two groups have avoided attacking each other for several years,” he said, adding, “They steer clear of clashes also because, as a reminder, al-Qaida’s leader Saif al-Adel is still in Iran.”
On proposed partition scenarios, he cautioned that plans often ignore the Southern Transitional Council (STC), United Arab Emirates patronage, and AQAP’s persistence, saying, “Removing them would require substantial military commitment, which no one appears willing to make right now.” He warned that installing a northern authority could “install an enemy government closely aligned with Iran” and “solve one problem and create another.” “Second, are we sure the STC, funded as we know by the Emirates, would accept this?” he asked, noting that over the past year and a half, the STC cooperated with the internationally recognized government against al-Qaida and the Houthis while repeatedly voicing political, military, and economic discomfort under that arrangement.
If snapback proceeds, Alzghool outlined diverging paths. He said, “Turning east toward China and Russia appears increasingly attractive for Iran,” including interest in Eastern weapons systems, and hard-liners could push to accelerate a pursuit of nuclear weapons—a course some argue would restore deterrence with even a small arsenal.
He also offered a contrasting path: “On the other hand, Iran could still pivot toward regional and international integration,” which would require scaling back sensitive nuclear activities, reducing militia networks, and tapping the growing influence of moderates in government and in the Supreme National Security Council.
Over the next news cycle, the UN track will determine whether sanctions snap back and pressure intensifies—or whether a narrow diplomatic lane remains. Either way, Tehran’s near-term calculus rests on three facts: a sizable 60%-enriched uranium stockpile with inspector-access demands, a missile program rebuilding under constraints, and continued Houthi operations that keep the region on edge.
