Giovanni Leoni only made his senior debut in 2023, playing in the Italian third tier for Padova as a 16-year-old, but just two years later he has joined the Premier League champions.
Liverpool have been looking for reinforcements in central defence since selling Jarell Quansah to Bayer Leverkusen last month, and although Crystal Palace’s Marc Guehi remains very much in their sights, Leoni would provide extra cover in an area where the Reds are potentially light.
After all, captain Virgil van Dijk and Ibrahima Konate were their only fit senior central defenders for the Community Shield.
With Van Dijk now 34, Liverpool need to have an eye on the future. Eighteen-year-old Leoni certainly ticks that box but also looks ready now, despite only establishing himself in Parma’s starting line-up in the second half of last season.
With just 14 top-flight starts under his belt, he has not played as much as fellow highly rated teenage centre-backs Pau Cubarsi at Barcelona, Mamadou Sarr at Strasbourg or Real Madrid’s Dean Huijsen, but his stats are impressive.
At 6ft 5in (1.96m) he is exceptional in the air, ranking in the top 10% for aerial duels won in Serie A last season.
At Parma, Leoni played in the middle of the back three or as the right centre-back and, as well as his aerial strength, he is also composed in possession, especially given his lack of experience.
He will probably have to be patient for his chances. But the opportunity to develop his game with the Premier League champions and learn from Van Dijk, who he has previously called his inspiration, appears to have helped clinch the move.
Two Democratic Senators sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Friday urging her to end a policy requiring her personal sign-off on grants of more than $100,000.
“We write to convey our deep concerns about the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) policy requiring the Secretary’s personal approval of all expenditures exceeding $100,000, including those for disaster-related costs,” wrote Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.).
“This directive, as currently implemented, creates dangerous delays and undermines the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) effectiveness, placing lives at unnecessary risk,” they continued.
This comes after reports that FEMA’s response to the devastating Texas floods in June may have been delayed by Noem’s policy.
The letter said this resulted in call centers being “understaffed in the crucial early days of the disaster, leaving thousands of survivors without answers or assistance.”
The senators argue $100,000 is an extremely low threshold given the scale of FEMA’s work. Disaster recovery often requires millions of dollars in resources to be mobilized in hours. These extra bureaucratic steps, according to the letter, also hinder the agency’s ability to coordinate with other local agencies.
“These failures are not isolated missteps, but foreseeable outcomes of a policy that centralizes decision-making at the expense of speed and flexibility,” wrote the senators.
Noem last month denied the policy had slowed federal response efforts in Texas, saying it was an “accountability measure” in an interview with NBC News’s “Meet the Press.”
“So those claims are false,” she told NBC News’s Kristen Welker about the reports. “They’re from people who won’t put their name behind those claims. And those call centers were fully staffed and responsive. And this is the fastest, I believe, in years, maybe decades, that FEMA has been deployed to help individuals in this type of situation.”
Murray and Peters set an Aug. 31 deadline for Noem to respond to several questions in the letter.
Among the questions: “What metrics, if any, are being used to evaluate whether the Secretary review policy improves accountability or financial stewardship without compromising emergency response?” and “Has DHS conducted or commissioned any after-action reviews to assess how the Secretary’s review policy affected the response to the Central Texas floods or other disasters? If so, please share those findings.”
The Hill has reached out to DHS for comment on the letter.
(Reuters) -U.S. energy firms this week held the number of oil and natural gas rigs operating steady, energy services firm Baker Hughes said in its closely followed report on Friday.
The oil and gas rig count, an early indicator of future output, remained at 539 in the week to August 15.
Baker Hughes said oil rigs rose by one to 412 this week, while gas rigs fell by one to 122.
The oil and gas rig count declined by about 5% in 2024 and 20% in 2023 as lower U.S. oil and gas prices over the past couple of years prompted energy firms to focus more on boosting shareholder returns and paying down debt rather than increasing output.
The independent exploration and production (E&P) companies tracked by U.S. financial services firm TD Cowen said they planned to cut capital expenditures by around 4% in 2025 from levels seen in 2024.
That compares with roughly flat year-over-year spending in 2024, increases of 27% in 2023, 40% in 2022, and 4% in 2021.
Even though analysts forecast U.S. spot crude prices would decline for a third year in a row in 2025, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) projected crude output would rise from a record 13.2 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2024 to around 13.4 million bpd in 2025.
On the gas side, the EIA projected a 65% increase in spot gas prices in 2025 would prompt producers to boost drilling activity this year after a 14% price drop in 2024 caused several energy firms to cut output for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic reduced demand for the fuel in 2020. [NGAS/POLL]
The EIA projected gas output would rise to 106.4 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) in 2025, up from 103.2 bcfd in 2024 and a record 103.6 bcfd in 2023.
(Reporting by Scott DiSavinoEditing by Marguerita Choy)
Watch: Royals and veterans mark VJ Day 80 years on
King Charles III and Queen Camilla have joined World War Two veterans for a remembrance service to mark the 80th anniversary of VJ Day.
Some 33 men now aged between 96 and 105, who served in military in the Far East and Pacific, were the guests of honour at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire.
Wreaths were laid by the royal couple before a flypast by the RAF’s Red Arrows and a national two-minute silence.
The event heard moving accounts from veterans and civilians caught up in the war. Earlier, the King released an audio message in which he hailed the courage and sacrifice of the veterans.
VJ Day, or Victory over Japan Day, is commemorated on 15 August each year and marks the date in 1945 when Japan surrendered to Allied forces, bringing World War Two to an end after nearly six years.
An estimated 71,000 soldiers from the UK and the Commonwealth died fighting Japan, including upwards of 12,000 prisoners of war.
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Sir Keir Starmer laid a wreath while the King and Queen watched on
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Actress Celia Imrie narrated the story of the war in the Far East at the service, as the experiences of those who took part were told in person and through films shown on a screen.
George Durrant, who served in the intelligence corps, appeared on stage with his great-granddaughter as he paid tribute to a fallen comrade, saying he was present “not as a hero but as someone who witnessed the price of freedom”.
Royal Navy veteran Alfred Conway, from Lincolnshire, watched as his great-grandchildren laid a wreath on the Burma Thailand Railway memorial at the Arboretum.
There was also a tribute from poet Sir Ben Okri to the contributions of soldiers who had enlisted from countries in the British Commonwealth to fight in Burma (now Myanmar).
The Queen appeared to wipe away a tear as veteran Yavar Abbas, originally from Lucknow in India, went briefly off-script “to salute my brave King, who is here with his beloved Queen in spite of the fact that he is under treatment for cancer”.
The 105-year-old added that he hoped it would bring “comfort” that he had been free of cancer for 25 years.
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The Queen appeared to shed a tear as Yavar Abbas spoke
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Veteran Alfred Conway watched on as his great-grandchildren laid a wreath
The service – also attended by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer – concluded with a flypast by World War Two-era aircraft, the Spitfire, Hurricane and Lancaster bomber.
A reception was then held for the King and Queen to meet the veterans and their families.
Among those at the service was Edward Hadfield, now 100, who served in the 8th Punjab Regiment in Burma and had been sailing from Chennai, in southern India, on VJ Day.
“You’ve never heard such a cheer in your life,” he recalled to the BBC. “The war was over, and you were alive, and I was alive.”
However, he said he had also remembered friends who did not survive who “gave [their] today so we can have our tomorrow”.
Edward Hadfield was sailing in the Indian Ocean when VJ Day was declared
Katharine Canning spent her early childhood in a internment camp in Japanese-occupied China
Katharine Canning, 83, was also at the National Memorial Arboretum. She was 11 months old when her family were declared “enemy aliens” in Japanese-occupied China.
Along with her parents and brother, she was taken to an internment camp, where she spent the first few years of her life and recalls being rescued by paratroopers on VJ Day, when she was three years old.
Another veteran at the event, Stanley Roberts, 99, said the VJ Day ceremony was “deeply important” as “we won’t be around for the 90th”.
The son of a Japanese military doctor travelled to the UK to attend the ceremony too.
Yoshi Sekiba said he was paying his respects to the British troops who died, explaining: “Unfortunately, we fought with each other in World War Two, but we are now good friends.”
Stanley Roberts said the VJ Day ceremony was “deeply important”
In a message released before the service, King Charles vowed that those who fought and died in the Pacific and Far East “shall never be forgotten”.
He reflected on the moment 80 years ago that his grandfather, King George VI, announced that the war was over – “the message a battle-weary world had long prayed for”.
He said he spoke now in the “same spirit of commemoration and celebration, as we honour anew all those whose service and sacrifice saw the forces of liberty prevail”.
The King referred to the British, Commonwealth and Allied forces who continued to fight for months after the war in Europe had ended, who became known as the “Forgotten Army”.
He noted the “horrific” conditions prisoners of war endured in Japanese captivity, and the “grievous hardships” innocent civilians in occupied territories faced.
“Their experience reminds us that war’s true cost extends beyond battlefields, touching every aspect of life – a tragedy all-too vividly demonstrated by conflicts around the world today.”
King Charles marks 80 years since VJ Day in speech to nation
The King also acknowledged the “immense price” paid by the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where more than 200,000 people died as a result of the US atomic bombings in August 1945.
He said it was a “price we pray no nation need ever pay again”.
The King added: “But in recalling so much suffering, we must not lose sight of how great was the cause and how sweet the victory.”
He went on to cite the collaboration across faiths and cultural divides, and said the “courage and camaraderie displayed in humanity’s darkest hour is a flame that shall blaze for eternity – a beacon that honours our past and guides our future”.
In a message posted on social media, the Prince and Princess of Wales praised the “courage, sacrifice and resilience” of those who fought, adding: “We owe an enduring debt to the generation who gave so much.”
PA Media
The service concluded with a flypast by World War Two-era aircraft, the Spitfire, Hurricane and Lancaster bomber
VJ Day commemorations began on Thursday with a sunset ceremony at the Memorial Gates in Green Park, in central London, which paid tribute to Commonwealth personnel.
As dawn broke on Friday, British military bagpipers played the lament Battle’s O’er in the Far East section of the National Memorial Arboretum and at Edinburgh Castle – as well as in Nepal, Brunei, New Zealand, Japan and aboard HMS Prince of Wales, currently at sea in the Far East.
A piper also performed at a Japanese peace garden in west London to reflect the reconciliation between the UK and Japan in the decades since the war ended.
From 21:00 BST on Friday, buildings across the country will be lit up to mark VJ Day, including Buckingham Palace, 10 Downing Street, the Tower of London, Blackpool Tower, Durham Cathedral and Cardiff Castle – as well as the Kranji War Memorial in Singapore and the White Cliffs of Dover.
Events to commemorate the 80th anniversary will conclude with a reception for veterans at Windsor Castle later in the autumn.
Washington, D.C., Police Chief Pamela Smith pushed back Friday morning on Attorney General Pam Bondi’s move to install the Drug Enforcement Agency chief at the head of the district’s police, warning that the directive could upend the department’s operations.
On Thursday night, Bondi installed DEA administrator Terrance Cole as D.C.’s “emergency police commissioner,” assuming Smith’s duties as part of Trump’s takeover of the district’s police.
“If effectuated, the Bondi Order would upend the command structure of MPD, endangering the safety of the public and law enforcement officers alike,” Smith wrote Friday morning in a court filing accompanying the district’s lawsuit. “In my nearly three decades in law enforcement, I have never seen a single government action that would cause a greater threat to law and order than this dangerous directive.”
Smith said that Bondi’s directive would only “create confusion” for officers.
“Imposing a new command structure ‘effective immediately’ will wreak operational havoc within MPD and create tremendous risk for the public,” she wrote. “The new command structure will create confusion for MPD personnel, who are required under District law to respect and obey the Chief of Police as the head and chief of the police force.
“There is no greater risk to public safety in a paramilitary organization than to not know who is in command,” she added.
Trump’s police takeover is in effect for 30 days. His administration has said it will seek congressional approval to extend past that window.
Washington DC is suing the federal government over its takeover of the police force, after US Attorney General Pam Bondi named the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) as the district’s “emergency police commissioner”.
The city’s attorney general, Brian Schwalb, wrote on X that the US government had illegally declared a takeover of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) and was “abusing its temporary, limited authority under the law”.
The lawsuit asks a judge to void Bondi’s order and stop the DEA head from “assuming any position of command within MPD”.
President Donald Trump on Monday declared he would use federal law enforcement to crack down on crime in Washington.
He has since sent in hundreds of National Guard members and other federal agents to clear homeless encampments, run checkpoints and otherwise bolster law enforcement, citing a 1970s law known as the Home Rule Act that allows him to use MPD for “federal purposes” that he “may deem necessary and appropriate.”
Late Thursday, Bondi wrote in an order that DEA Administrator Terry Cole would assume “all of the powers and duties” of local Police Chief Pamela Smith. The chief “must receive approval from Commissioner Cole before issuing any further directives to the MPD”, according to the order.
Almost immediately, Washington DC Mayor Muriel Bowser and Schwalb struck back, saying the order was “unlawful” and telling Smith she did not have to follow it.
In the last few days, armoured vehicles have lined up near monuments and other tourist sites, and drivers have been stopped on a popular nightlife corridor. Officials have said that, altogether, 800 troops are expected to be deployed to the district, as well as 500 federal law enforcement agents, such as the FBI.
Bowser, a Democrat, has said there is no emergency and Trump’s “unnecessary and unprecedented” move is an “authoritarian push”.
Speaking on Fox News on Thursday to announce her appointment of Cole, Bondi said federal officers had made 156 arrests and seized 27 firearms this week.
Trump has said crime has worsened in Washington DC, but analysis by BBC Verify suggests a different trend.
Violent offences fell after peaking in 2023, and in 2024, they hit their lowest level in 30 years, according to figures published by DC police.
They are continuing to fall, preliminary data for 2025 suggests.
Violent crime overall has fallen 26% this year compared to the same point in 2024, and robbery is down 28%, according to the police department.
(NEXSTAR) – The U.S. is on “La Niña watch,” according to a new forecast issued by the Climate Prediction Center on Thursday.
The Center predicts La Niña will form in the fall, influencing the weather we see in the latter part of the year.
This year’s La Niña is expected to be short and weak, much like the one we saw last winter. But that doesn’t mean its impact on the weather will necessarily be weak. In hindsight, the 2024-25 winter season “bore the telltale signs of a La Niña influence,” explained meteorologist Nat Johnson.
In a typical La Niña year, the southern half of the country will get drier, warmer weather, while the Pacific Northwest and Ohio Valley get more precipitation than normal.
That’s pretty much what happened last winter, despite the “weak” La Niña.
“In particular, most of the southern U.S. and northern Mexico were predicted to be and turned out to be drier than average, with record-dry conditions in southern Arizona and parts of New Mexico,” Johnson said. “Wetter conditions were forecasted and did prevail over the northern part of the continent, particularly in Alaska and parts of the Pacific Northwest, as well as much farther south in Central America.”
A typical La Niña winter pattern. (NOAA)
It wasn’t a perfect forecast – east Texas, Arkansas, Kentucky and western Virginia got some pretty wet weather – but overall, the La Niña pattern played out, Johnson said.
Even though this year’s La Niña is expected to dissipate before the end of winter, its influence is still most likely to be visible in the peak winter months, explained Michelle L’Heureux, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center. Both La Niña and El Niño tend to have their strongest influence over the weather in the winter.
If this year’s La Niña turns out to be perfectly typical, the winter precipitation around the country would look like the map below: a dry season for California and the South, but a wetter or snowier season in the blue patches of the northern and Midwest states.
One way La Niña could have an influence sooner is on hurricane season, which runs through the end of November. La Niñas are typically associated with a stronger, busier hurricane season.
In its updated hurricane forecast released this month, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said there is a 50% chance of an above-normal hurricane season, a 35% chance of a near-normal season and a 15% chance of a quieter season.
Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) shares climbed Friday as renewed investor optimism signaled a potential turning point for the software giant, which has faced slowing growth, rising competition, and mounting pressure to refocus on its core cloud business.
DA Davidson analyst Gil Luria upgraded Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) from Underperform to Neutral with a price forecast of $225 on Friday.
Luria upgraded Salesforce to Neutral from Underperform but kept his $225 price forecast, valuing the company at 18.5x his updated fiscal 2027 EPS estimate.
Luria said Salesforce has trailed the iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF (BATS:IGV) by 48 points year-to-date and 27 points since its fiscal first-quarter 2026 earnings on May 28, as investor sentiment soured over slowing organic growth in its core business and intensifying competition across its customer base.
Luria projected Salesforce’s organic revenue growth at 8% in fiscal 2026 and 7% in fiscal 2027 (excluding Informatica (NYSE: INFA)), warning that the company’s push into Agentforce is coming at the expense of its core cloud business.
He said Salesforce’s fiscal second-quarter 2026 guidance, the first quarter in its history where cRPO growth is expected to be under 10% in constant currency, confirms mounting headwinds from market saturation, competitive pressure, and customer budget scrutiny.
He noted that while Agentforce adoption has been strong, bottlenecks such as tech debt, siloed data, unpredictable costs when AI is enabled, and unclear enterprise AI strategies limit the efficiency gains investors expect.
Luria said activist investor Starboard Value recently boosted its stake by 47%, which he sees as a signal of renewed pressure on Salesforce to refocus on core growth, expand margins, and avoid dilutive acquisitions.
Luria projected fiscal second-quarter 2026 revenue of $10.08 billion and EPS of $2.78.
Price Actions: CRM shares traded higher by 2.65% to $239.55 at last check Friday.
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Hundreds of protesters have attended demonstrations at The Bell Hotel during the summer
Housing asylum seekers at a hotel is causing an “unacceptable” risk to public safety, the High Court has been told.
Epping Forest District Council has applied for a temporary injunction to block asylum seekers from being housed at The Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex.
Protests began outside the hotel last month and Essex Police said at one point up to 2,000 people were demonstrating near the hotel and 16 people have been charged with offences relating to the disturbances.
Philip Coppel KC, representing the authority at the Royal Courts of Justice, said: “The protests have unfortunately been attended by violence and disorder.”
Protests have been staged at the hotel since a man living there was charged with sexual assault, harassment and inciting a girl to engage in sexual activity.
Hadush Kebatu, 41, from Ethiopia, has denied the offences and remains on remand in custody.
Mr Justice Eyre is hearing submissions from the 80-room hotel’s owners into Friday afternoon, but said it was “unlikely” that a ruling would come this week.
The council lodged the application on Tuesday and asked that it take effect within 14 days in the event it was granted.
Mr Coppel said: “Epping Forest District Council comes to this court seeking an injunction because it has a very serious problem.
“There has been what can be described as an increase in community tension, the catalyst of which has been the use of The Bell Hotel to place asylum seekers.
“It is a problem that is causing great local anxiety.”
A High Court judge is expected to make a decision on an injunction applied for by Epping Forest District Council
Mr Coppel said that the defendant, Somani Hotels, “did not advise or notify the local planning authority” to seek its views on the use of the site.
“It was not until two months later, when Epping Forest received a complaint about the use, that the matter came to the planning department’s attention,” he continued.
He added the hotel was no longer a true hotel because the residents had not chosen to stay there, like ordinary guests.
“For them, the Bell Hotel is no more a hotel than is a borstal to a young offender,” he said.
It did not appear on booking sites and people did not go there for meals, drinks or meetings, he added.
“It has been emptied out of all of the uses and purposes,” said Mr Coppel.
‘Breaking point’
The council told the court in written submissions residents were reported to be scared and local businesses suffering.
Councillors feared the area was at “breaking point” and there was a “persistent atmosphere of tension” since the town had become a “focal point”.
Mr Coppel pointed out there were three schools with 1,800 students within a one-kilometre (0.6 mile) radius of the hotel, and they would soon be re-opening for the autumn term.
“This sort of risk must be removed,” he added.
Lawyers representing Somani Hotels told the court that an injunction would cause asylum seekers “hardship” and that the move would set “a dangerous precedent that protests justify planning injunctions”.
Piers Riley-Smith, for the hotel firm, told the court in written submissions that the injunction bid should be delayed to a later date and that the Home Office’s contracted service provider, Corporate Travel Management (North) Limited (CTM), should be involved in the case.
He said the alleged planning breach was “not flagrant”, and it was “entirely wrong” for the council to “suggest the use has been hidden from them”.
The hotel previously housed asylum seekers from May 2020 to March 2021, and from October 2022 to April 2024, he added.
The Home Office previously told the BBC: “It would be inappropriate to comment while legal proceedings are ongoing.”
