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It seems obvious that Iran shouldn’t have an atomic bomb but should any country? There are less than 10 countries that have nuclear weapons, three of them have a single person effectively in total control
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Great eyebrows never go out of style, and Kristie Streicher knows exactly how to get them right.The celebrity brow artist counts Miley Cyrus, Adele, Emily Blunt, Sandra Bullock, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Mila Kunis among her loyal
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Great eyebrows never go out of style, and Kristie Streicher knows exactly how to get them right.The celebrity brow artist counts Miley Cyrus, Adele, Emily Blunt, Sandra Bullock, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Mila Kunis among her loyal
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Gavin Newsom Trolls Noem Over Trump Firing Published March 5, 2026 4:38 PM PST Gavin Newsom is pouring one out for Kristi Noem ... trolling the outgoing Homeland Security Secretary over her firing. The California
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Meghan McCain & Tomi Lahren Kristi Noem Cared More About Her Looks ... Than Our Homeland's Security!!! Published March 5, 2026 3:25 PM PST Kristi Noem was a terrible Homeland Security chief who cared more
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Britney Spears' DUI BMW Picked Up From Impound Lot Published March 5, 2026 2:19 PM PST The BMW Britney Spears was driving when she was arrested on suspicion of DUI last night has been picked
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'Free Britney' Advocate We Were Wrong to Help End Her Conservatorship!!! Published March 5, 2026 1:07 PM PST Play video content TMZ.com A former "Free Britney" enthusiast says she regrets publicly pushing to get Britney
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Mexico’s security chief, the man who helped lead the operation that killed the drug lord known as “El Mencho,” spends his days and nights inside fortified office buildings, including a one-bedroom apartment in the security ministry built for him. His quarters — inside a modern complex beside a busy thoroughfare — include a bedroom, gym, kitchen and a conference room that seats 25. From the living room, guests can hear the crack of gunfire from a firing range within the building complex, according to a high-ranking government official who has visited the apartment. A red telephone on his desk provides a direct line to the president. Omar Garcia Harfuch, 44, has lived this way since 2020, when on his commute to work a truck cut off his armored Suburban and gunmen disguised as road workers sprayed his vehicle with more than 400 bullets. Harfuch returned fire and survived with three gunshot wounds. Two of his bodyguards and a bystander were killed. The security chief blamed the assassination attempt on Nemesio Oseguera, 59, better known as El Mencho, leader of the brutal Jalisco New Generation Cartel, one of Mexico’s largest and bloodiest crime groups. Six years later, bringing down the cartel leader was a deeply personal moment for Harfuch, who friends say was devastated by his security guards’ deaths. Harfuch declined to comment for this story. The account is based on interviews with a dozen friends, colleagues and security analysts. Those close to Harfuch say that he’s unlikely to let his guard down now that El Mencho is gone. But the death of the kingpin has lifted the profile of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s Minister of Security and Citizen Protection, who’s credited with spearheading her more muscular approach to fighting cartels, so much so he’s considered an early frontrunner for the presidency when her six-year term ends in 2030. “Omar Garcia Harfuch is the number one presidential candidate today,” said Armando Vargas, the top security expert at the think tank Mexico Evalua. “He is the most visible leader of this new strategy.” The approach is not without risks: El Mencho’s death triggered a wave of violence across Mexico that killed 25 National Guard members and could fuel deadly feuds as rival cartel factions fight for control. It’s also a marked departure from former President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s “hugs not bullets” philosophy, under which cartels grew in power and reach to control vast swaths of territory and diversified from drugs into extortion, human trafficking, and contraband fuel. TRUSTED BY THE PRESIDENTHarfuch rose to prominence within the Mexico City government when now-President Sheinbaum was the capital’s mayor. Rodrigo Canales, who advised Sheinbaum on her security strategy, said Harfuch helped her navigate a difficult period early in her mayoral tenure when high-level police officers were accused of corruption. “He has Claudia’s absolute trust and earned it by being extremely loyal and effective in key moments early in her mayorship,” Canales said. Sheinbaum promoted Harfuch to head of the city’s police in 2019 after sacking his predecessor over a money laundering scandal. Harfuch had been in the job for under a year when assassins made the attempt on his life. After initially returning fire, he scrambled into the back seats of his armored SUV and crouched down until reinforcements could arrive, he recalled in interviews after the attack. Twelve alleged members of the Jalisco cartel were arrested and given life sentences. Following the ambush, he moved out of his house and into Mexico City’s police headquarters. His inner circle, already small, became even tighter. He sees his children in fleeting moments. “He went from someone who could go to a restaurant, meet friends, attend a colleague’s birthday party, to being guarded in an office, spending practically 90 percent of his life inside police buildings,” said a friend who has known Harfuch for 20 years. Like the cartel bosses he hunts, one misstep could cost him his life. FOLLOWING IN FAMILY FOOTSTEPSHarfuch comes from a line of Mexican top brass. His grandfather, Marcelino Garcia Barragan, was defence minister in the 1960s while his father, Javier Garcia Paniagua, was a senator and presidential contender who led a federal security agency in the 1970s. That mix of police and military heritage is rare in Mexico and puts Harfuch in a unique position to lead the country’s heavily militarized public security structure, two sources who’ve worked with him say. “Garcia Harfuch was sort of destined to follow in his father and grandfather’s footsteps,” said Gladys McCormick, a professor and historian of US-Mexican relations at Syracuse University. But that same legacy is regarded with suspicion in parts of the ruling leftist Morena party. Both his grandfather and father oversaw periods of military abuses and repression of social movements by security forces. Critics also highlight Harfuch’s links to the infamous disappearance of 43 students from the Ayotzinapa teaching college in 2014. A 2022 truth commission report cited him-then a mid-level federal police officer-as having attended meetings where officials crafted a version of events that masked the role of security forces in the disappearances. Harfuch, who was never accused of wrongdoing, has previously said he only attended meetings to help coordinate the search for the missing students. No local or federal officials have been sentenced in the case. For the United States, Harfuch has emerged as the linchpin in security collaboration with Mexico at a time when US President Donald Trump is piling pressure on his southern neighbour to aggressively combat cartels, and threatening US military force if Mexico can’t show results. Derek Maltz, former acting administrator of the US Drug Enforcement Administration, said he met Harfuch last year shortly after Mexico transferred 29 suspected high-level cartel members to the US in what was then the largest such handover in history. “He looked me in the eyes, and he said, ‘This is only the beginning,” Maltz recalled. Maltz had his doubts, but in the coming months Mexico handed over another 63 suspected cartel leaders and took down the country’s most-wanted drug lord. “I’m very impressed with what I’m seeing,” he said. The prisoner transfers underscore what officials from both countries say is an unprecedented level of co-operation and intelligence sharing as they seek to dismantle cartels through military confrontations, money laundering investigations, and drug and firearm seizures. HUNT FOR EL MENCHOThe hunt for El Mencho gained urgency in November, when the Jalisco cartel kidnapped two of Harfuch’s investigators in the city of Zapopan, a cartel stronghold, according to the high-ranking Mexican official. Soldiers raided houses of suspected cartel members and interrogations produced information that helped tighten the net around El Mencho. Reuters is the first outlet to report the role of the kidnappings in the search for El Mencho. The agents were released after a week. The breakthrough came when authorities tracked one of El Mencho’s multiple girlfriends to his villa, Mexico’s Defence Minister Ricardo Trevilla has said. A new US-military-led task force confirmed the exact location of the house, Reuters reported. But the government official said the real slip wasn’t the romance; it was that the 59-year-old cartel leader wanted to see his two children with the woman. Mexican troops swooped in after the girlfriend and El Mencho’s children left. After a shootout, El Mencho died on a military helicopter en route to a hospital. Eight of his bodyguards were also killed. Two soldiers died during the raid; another two died later from injuries. Harfuch received a confirmation text with an image of El Mencho’s body, still clad in a flak jacket, the Mexican official said. “I spoke with him Sunday morning after El Mencho was killed,” said Eduardo Clark, a top health official in Mexico who is close to Harfuch. “He told me, ‘this is a huge relief.’”
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France will hold municipal elections on March 15 and 22, votes seen as a key test ahead of next year’s presidential election. The two-round ballot will measure the strength of the far-right National Rally (RN) and showcase what types of alliances could emerge in an increasingly fragmented landscape. Heading nearly 35,000 communes — from major cities to villages with only a few dozen residents — mayors are France’s most trusted elected officials, seen by voters as the political figures closest to their daily concerns. Local results can also shape national momentum and reveal which themes resonate with voters, especially when they take place just over a year before the next presidential election. The anti-immigration, eurosceptic party, which has so far struggled to make meaningful gains at a local level, is treating the March votes as a critical step toward building momentum for the 2027 presidential ballot. It hopes to consolidate towns it already controls and expand into larger urban areas, saying it would field about 650 lists, substantially more than in previous cycles. Currently, only around a dozen mayors belong to, or are backed by, the RN. The far-right party only runs one city of over 100,000 inhabitants, Perpignan. One key question ahead of the 2027 vote is what alliances the RN will strike with other parties between the two rounds. Will decades of tradition of shunning the far right hold? Some, especially in mainstream parties on the right, are tempted to do otherwise this time. In a sign of how important this election is for the RN, 33 out of 119 of its members of parliament are candidates in the municipal elections. Marseille is a long-time conservative city which the left won in the last ballot in 2020, and which all main parties, including the RN, are fighting over. Paris is another key battleground. For decades a city led by conservatives, it has had a Socialist mayor since 2001. The RN is also targeting Toulon, a city of 180,000 in southern France, which it already ruled under its previous name, the National Front, from 1995 to 2001. The left did well across France in the last municipal elections in 2020. It is now weakened nationally. Whether it can keep some of the cities it won last time, such as Nantes and Montpellier for the Socialists, or Lyon and Strasbourg for the Greens, will be in focus. The hard-left France Unbowed, which like the RN has never been strong in local elections, is also hoping to make gains, including in the Seine-Saint-Denis area where it has several members of parliament. The conservative Republicans (LR) have lost heavily in the last national elections but have long been strong in municipal elections. President Emmanuel Macron’s allies hold relatively few municipalities, limiting the potential for an anti-government vote. Menton, a quiet Riviera town popular with retirees, is bound to attract attention. Former President Nicolas Sarkozy’s son Louis, openly inspired by Trump-style rhetoric, is a candidate there. There are nearly 35,000 separate elections, many of which are focused on local issues and are not reviewed by pollsters, making them hard to predict. Nationwide, security, housing and local taxes are among key issues for voters in this election, surveys show. Another factor making those elections hard to predict is how they work. A list that wins an absolute majority in the first round takes control of the municipality. Failing that, all lists with 10% or more advance to the second round. Those with at least 5% can merge with larger lists. This system often leads to three- or four-way runoffs, making the second round quite unpredictable. There could also potentially be an impact from the killing of far-right activist Quentin Deranque, who was beaten to death in February in a fight with alleged hard-left activists. The incident soured the mood towards France Unbowed, a poll showed. Voting starts at 8am on March 15 and closes between 1700 GMT and 1900 GMT, depending on the city. In most medium to large cities, there will be a second round on March 22. Voting times are the same. Results will trickle in on those evenings.
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The Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grands Prix are unlikely to be replaced on what would become a 22-race Formula One calendar if, as now looks probable, they are cancelled due to conflict in the Middle East.Multiple senior sources in the F1 paddock told Reuters that reducing the world championship from a scheduled 24 rounds was the most probable outcome. Bahrain's floodlit race at the Sakhir circuit to the south of Manama is scheduled for April 12 with the Saudi race in Jeddah due on the following weekend. MotoGP is also due to race at Qatar's Lusail circuit near Doha on April 12 and has said that date looks very difficult for them to fulfil, with the round unlikely to move to another venue. The World Endurance Championship (WEC) round in Doha on March 26-28 has been postponed.Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain's capital Manama have been targeted by Iranian missiles and drones, with a hotel hit in the latter city, after US and Israel launched attacks on Iran. Major airports in the region, significant hubs for international travellers, remain closed.Rescheduling the Formula One races for the same venues later in the year would be extremely difficult since temperatures are much higher in the region through the European summer and autumn. There is also an absence of obvious slots, with Formula One keen to maintain its August break and relieve the burden on teams.Although a number of circuits have been mooted in the media as possible replacements – Italy's Imola, France's Le Castellet and Portugal's Portimao as well as Turkey's Istanbul Park – the practical reality of shifting the circus at short notice makes it a major logistical challenge.There would also be little incentive for promoters and a limited window to sell tickets to cover the hosting fees while organising marshals, security and transport takes time. Hosting another race at Japan's Suzuka after round three, another option suggested, would raise another set of problems and track owners Honda would also have little incentive to cast a double spotlight on their own embarrassing engine woes with Aston Martin.While races were held behind closed doors at stand-in venues during the Covid-19 pandemic, with some circuits holding two in succession, there was a pressing need then to complete a season. A reduced 22-race calendar – still a long season compared to many in the past – would meet commercial obligations even if reducing Formula One's overall revenues.BAHRAIN WAS CANCELLED IN 2011 WITHOUT REPLACEMENTThe Middle Eastern races are major contributors to Formula One's bottom line but Bahrain and Saudi Arabia also have far deeper ties to the sport, the former as owners of champions McLaren and the latter as sponsors and investors. When the Bahrain Grand Prix was cancelled in 2011 due to unrest in the kingdom, it was not re-scheduled after teams objected to a late October date.'We want our role in Formula One to continue to be as positive and constructive as it has always been, therefore, in the best interest of the sport, we will not pursue the rescheduling of a race this season,' the circuit chairman, who subsequently became a government minister, said at the time.Formula One's then commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone said later that Bahrain had paid the hosting fee anyway. Formula One's current chief executive Stefano Domenicali and Mohammed Ben Sulayem, president of the governing International Automobile Federation (FIA) have both said safety comes first.'We don't want to do any statement today because things are evolving and we still have time to make the right decision. This decision will be taken together,' Domenicali said in Melbourne. The Italian is expected to meet F1 bosses today.'It's the first get-together of all the teams. There's been very little communication about it (the situation) yet because of the effort that it took just to get here to Australia,' said McLaren boss Zak Brown. Mercedes boss Toto Wolff told reporters: 'I would very much hope we race. Is it realistic that we race there at the moment? I'm not quite sure'.While Formula One still has time before a decision has to be taken, other deadlines are fast approaching. Formula Two, a support series to Formula One, also has its first race of the season in Australia this weekend but the freight is then due to be flown to Bahrain on Monday for a test on March 25-27 at Sakhir.One senior source in the Formula Two paddock said teams were still awaiting clarification but expected both test and race to be cancelled, with an announcement possibly over the weekend. If the Bahrain F2 round, on the same weekend as Formula One, and the Saudi one are cancelled without replacement then the second race of the championship would not be until Monaco in June.
