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The alleged leader of Venezuelan criminal gang Tren de Aragua’s armed wing has been captured in a joint operation involving Colombia, the US and the UK.
Colombia’s National Police said José Antonio Márquez Morales – known as Caracas – was arrested in the city of Valledupar and alleged that he played a central role in managing the logistics and finances for the group for extortion, drug trafficking, and smuggling.
Tren de Aragua has been targeted by US President Donald Trump who declared it a terrorist organisation and deported more than 250 people he claimed were members of the gang to a jail in El Salvador.
Colombia’s National Police Director, Carlos Fernando Triana Beltrán said Mr Márquez Morales was the subject of an Interpol Red Notice which is a request to police worldwide to detain someone pending extradition.
News of the arrest emerged amid continuing tensions between the US and Venezuela over the Trump administration’s anti-drug-trafficking efforts in Latin America.
It has deployed warships to the Caribbean and last month, bombed vessels which Trump claimed were carrying drugs, apparently travelling from Venezuela to the US.
The Trump administration has accused Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro of being in league with drug cartels and is offering a reward for information leading to his capture to $50m (£37m).
Maduro has strongly rejected Washington’s accusations and has defended his government’s actions against drug trafficking.
new video loaded: U.K. Police Identify Attacker in Deadly Synagogue Stabbing
transcript
transcript
U.K. Police Identify Attacker in Deadly Synagogue Stabbing
A man attacked a synagogue in Manchester, England, ramming his car into people and stabbing others with a knife. The police fatally shot the assailant who was identified as a 35-year-old British citizen of Syrian descent.
At this time, we know that a car was driven directly at members of the public outside the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation synagogue on Middleton Road, Crumpsall in Manchester. The driver of the car was seen then to attack people with a knife. There were a large number of worshippers attending the synagogue at the time of this attack, but thanks to the immediate bravery of security staff and the worshippers inside, as well as the fast response of the police, the attacker was prevented from gaining access. All those inside were safely contained until police were able to confirm that it was safe to leave the premises.
A man attacked a synagogue in Manchester, England, ramming his car into people and stabbing others with a knife. The police fatally shot the assailant who was identified as a 35-year-old British citizen of Syrian descent.
Ford CEO Jim Farley gathered a host of experts this week to discuss what he calls “the essential economy,” the blue-collar backbone that he sees mired in crisis. AT&T CEO John Stankey and FedEx CEO Raj Subramaniam talked about how AI is impacting manufacturing and how they’re hustling to stay ahead of the curve; Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer issued a sober warning about how China could “dominate” if we’re not careful with our auto industry; and even JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon appeared via video to urge America not to become a “nation of compliance and box-checking.”
But during the keynote discussion with Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, and Mike Rowe of the Mike Rowe Works Foundation, Farley got vulnerable about how his own family is being impacted. “My son worked as a mechanic this summer,” Farley revealed while moderating.
Then, Farley said, his son asked a question that stunned both of his parents: “Dad, I really like this work. I don’t know why I need to go to college.” Farley said he and his wife looked at each other and wondered, “should we be debating this?” It’s something that’s happening in a lot of American households, he added. “It should be a debate.”
Math isn’t mathing
Rowe, a longtime vocational advocate, seized on data showing that while two skilled tradespeople enter the workforce, five retire each year. The imbalance, he explained, is “the math that’s catching up to us” as the Baby Boomer generation ages and birth rates fall.
Rowe cited data from his own life. His own degree cost $12,200 in 1984, he said, whereas today it would cost something like $97,000.
“Nothing in the history of western civilization has gotten more expensive, more quickly,” Rowe said. “Not energy, not food, not real estate, not even health care, [nothing has been inflated more] than the cost of a four-year degree.”
The Associated Press reported that, yes, many colleges were charging roughly $95,000 per year as of April 2024, but the financial aid system lowers that in practice. Still, it’s by and large true that inflation for college tuition, healthcare, and housing costs has far outpaced that for, say, televisions, toys, and software, showing Rowe is making a solid point. With costs this high, the value proposition of college is under serious scrutiny.
Fortune has reported on several Gen Z entrepreneurs who dove straight into the trades instead of going to college. One, at 23, was already his own boss and making more than $100,000 per year, and the other, 19, was working his way up to it. Both of them had side hustles as social-media influencers, adding another revenue stream. Marlo Loria, director of career and technical education and innovative partnerships at Mesa Public Schools in Arizona, said she often gives options to students that are different from a traditional four-year degree.
“Our youth want to know why. Why do I need to go to college? Why do I want to get in debt? Why do I want to do these things?” She said that “because I told you so” doesn’t cut it anymore.
A path back to the American Dream?
Labor Secretary Chavez-DeRemer echoed this sentiment, saying government, educators, and industry must partner to make the skilled trades attractive to young Americans.
“For far too long, we haven’t brought the right people to the table,” she said, emphasizing the need for collaboration so that “businesses are heard, and the American workforce is valued.”
Chavez-DeRemer argued that if the average American wants to have a good-paying job and a mortgage, they should strongly consider the trades.
She questioned: “Do you know that most of our 35- and 40-year-olds are not going to be able to buy a home anywhere near the future?”
This is the time in people’s lives when they’re trying to grow their families, and the current U.S. economy does not set them up to do that, she said. She said trade school graduates often emerge earning more than $100,000 per year. The average tradesman will come out making about $11,000 more than a college graduate will, she said.
The essential obstacle, said Rowe, is not just economics but stigma.
“Stigmas and stereotypes and myths, and misperceptions have conspired to keep a whole generation of kids from giving trades an honest look,” he said. Until culture changes and people recognize the dignity and opportunity of these jobs, attempts to fill workforce gaps will be “quixotic or Sisyphean.”
The AI question
Asked about the fear AI and robotics might replace human workers, both panelists were optimistic. Chavez-DeRemer compared the transition to prior industrial and tech revolutions, stating: “We adapt. We are an adaptable people.” She emphasized AI should be seen as a tool that empowers, not replaces, the essential workforce.
“Businesses are retraining their employees,” she said. “The R&D is showing us that [they’re] going to create new types of jobs.”
Rowe added “AI is coming for the coders, not yet for the welders,” reflecting the resiliency and growing demand in the trades. He argued every “front-line” vocation from welding to pipe-fitting, is now seeing a boom, and AI won’t touch that. Rowe also cited remarks covered by Fortune from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang about the need for blue-collar workers to power the data-center infrastructure underlying the AI boom. He also mentioned BlackRock CEO Larry Fink’s comments his $12 trillion-plus portfolio was dependent on having enough electricians, a sector short of hundreds of thousands of workers.
“The biggest CEOs in our country [are ringing] the metaphorical alarm bell,” Rowe said, calling it a “macro problem” the essential economy can solve.
Fortune Global Forum returns Oct. 26–27, 2025 in Riyadh. CEOs and global leaders will gather for a dynamic, invitation-only event shaping the future of business. Apply for an invitation.
Residents in UK’s Crumpsall say they are shocked after a car and knife attack near synagogue kills two people.
Manchester, England – As people gathered near a synagogue in Manchester, hours after an attack there killed two people, many struggled to make sense of the assault. Attacks don’t happen in places like this, locals say, not least on Yom Kippur.
About 9.30am (08:30 GMT) on Thursday, a man drove his car into people near the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue in Crumpsall in the north of Manchester before emerging to attack others with a knife.
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The synagogue’s security staff and members of the public prevented him from entering the building before police arrived and fatally shot the assailant, who appeared to be wearing an “explosive device”, police said. Four injured people were admitted to hospital in serious condition.
Two people have been arrested since the attack, said the Metropolitan Police’s head of counterterrorism policing, Assistant Commissioner Laurence Taylor. The identity and potential motives of the attacker have not been disclosed.
Standing with some of his family on the corner of a nearby road with a police helicopter hovering overhead, 23-year-old Zaki said he still can’t believe what happened.
“I heard the shots this morning,” he told Al Jazeera. “It didn’t seem believable. I thought it was fireworks.”
Zaki echoed the comments of many who gathered around the synagogue. These things don’t happen here, onlookers said. Crumpsall has long been a multicultural area. “Everyone in our community gets on well,” Zaki said. “Our neighbours are Jewish.”
Another resident, 41-year-old Sam Martin, also described struggling to understand the attack.
“There’s everyone here,” he told Al Jazeera, “Muslims, Jews, everyone. I’ve known nothing but love and kindness from our Jewish community. I’m just shocked this could happen.”
According to many people in the neighbourhood, even Israel’s war on Gaza hasn’t caused any great division within the community. However, many expressed concerns that far-right groups – their confidence fuelled after an August campaign to hang English flags across the country and a mass rally in London a month later – would seek to take advantage of the attack to further unrest.
Far-right activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, who uses the pseudonym Tommy Robinson, quickly seized upon the attack, assigning blame to groups from the Board of Deputies of British Jews to the United Kingdom’s ruling Labour Party for the assault despite the identity and potential motives of the attacker remaining unclear.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar criticised British authorities, accusing them of failing to curb anti-Semitism.
“Blatant and rampant antisemitic and anti-Israeli incitement, as well as calls of support for terror, have recently become a widespread phenomenon in the streets of London, in cities across Britain, and on its campuses,” he wrote on X.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the attacker was a “vile” person who was motivated to attack Jews “because they are Jews.”
I am appalled by the murderous attack near the Heaton Park Synagogue in Manchester on the morning of the holiest day for the Jewish people: Yom Kippur. My deepest condolences go to the families who have lost their loved ones,and I wish a swift and full recovery to the injured.…
One of the young men gathered near the police cordon, 23-year-old Akiva, who asked neither to be recorded or have notes taken during his interview out of respect for the holiday, was sure the English far right would seize upon the attack. He said the attack has shaken Jewish residents and would likely sow divisions in the otherwise quiet and well integrated community.
Akiva had come to the synagogue to check on his brother, who normally took a route past the synagogue on his way to worship. He said his mother collapsed when she first heard of the attack so close to their home in Manchester.
Other members of the district’s Jewish community gathered nearby spoke of feeling targeted for their identity, of having been attacked on their holiest day of the year.
Innovation is tomorrow’s growth. Portfolio management is how you decide which “tomorrows” to fund—and which to stop.
This page captures the highlights from a focused knowledge session led by Colin Nelson, HYPE’s Chief Innovation Consultant. Below you can either read the concise summary of Colin’s practical playbook for building and governing high-impact innovation portfolios, or watch the full recording for the complete session and examples.
Use the summary for a fast read; watch the recording for the full discussion, Q&A and real-world case examples.
Why Portfolio Management Is Surging in Relevance
Growth pressure isn’t new. What is new: disruption cycles keep shrinking while resources stay finite. Big organizations decentralize innovation (divisions, countries, P&Ls), which helps execution but obscures what’sactually being built. Without a transparent, governed portfolio, the future becomes guesswork.
The Portfolio Problem (In Plain Terms)
Low transparency: new things are scattered across teams and tools.
Weak governance: pet projects sneak through; good bets stall.
Long cycles vs. fast markets: fivey–ear bets meet 18–month shifts.
Core vs. capabilities: we sell X today, but our real assets may point elsewhere.
Leaders want a simple, predictive view of value (revenue, profit, timing, risk). Innovators want fair selection and resource clarity. Both need a way to pivot as evidence changes.
What “Good” Looks Like
Local flexibility, common spine: teams work their way, but share a macro process and minimum data so the whole can be governed.
Independent forecasting: concept owners don’t grade their own homework.
Regular reviews: stop, start, or doubledown with evidence.
A home for “not now”: an Innovation Shelf for good ideas paused due to timing, tech, or budget.
Eight Best Practices You Can Implement Now
1) Pick a Process (then iterate)
There’s no perfect model—stage–gate, agile, hybrid all work. What matters:
Stages map to your real decision points (money, capacity, compliance).
Different types (incremental/strategic/disruptive) can have lightly different tracks.
Treat the process as a product: review and refine.
An Example:
2) Balance by Context, Not a Fixed “Golden Ratio”
Retire the one–size–fits–all. Balance depends on urgency to change and industry disruption. Use an Ansoff matrix (offerings × markets) to visualize spread and ask:
Are we overweighting incremental when our core is eroding?
Do our strategic bets fill the 2–3 year revenue gap?
Are we carrying a few high–uncertainty, high–optionality shots
3) Keep Governance Simple
Make it easy to participate and easy to compare:
A Minimum Viable Data set (see best practice #6) for every concept.
Central roll–ups for visibility; local autonomy for execution.
4) Create an Innovation Shelf
A searchable home for good concepts you’re not doing now (tech not ready, budget tight, wrong timing). Capture at least:
Opportunity magnitude (order of magnitude is fine)
Work done so far; key assumptions and blockers
Fit to capabilities/strategy
When a live project stops or a slot opens, pull from the shelf first.
5) Decouple People from Outcomes
Treat innovation as a funnel, not a pipeline. Most things shouldn’t ship.
Reward good process (clear learning, timely kill decisions), not just launches.
Normalize “we tested it properly and we’re stopping” as a success for the system.
Reallocate talent and budget fast when evidence says pivot/stop.
6) Standardize a Minimum Viable Data Set
For every concept, capture five fields so you can compare apples to apples:
Michaël Majster, founding partner at Paris-based Majster & Nehmé and a 30-year legal veteran, described the data-related fears as stemming “more from fantasy or paranoia than from a concrete, realistic, and rational analysis”.
During his career, Majster has represented both multi-platinum and emerging artists in France, plus prominent independent record labels and distributors, and a major music publisher. He has not represented UMG or Downtown.
He is rated in the top tier of music law practitioners in France by the industry-standard Décideurs Leaders League.
In July, some 200 employees of independent music companies and trade bodies signed a letter citing data concerns about UMG’s potential acquisition of Downtown subsidiariesFUGA and Curve Royalty Systems.
The letter contended that UMG’s ownership of these subsidiaries would grant it access to sensitive data from independent labels, such as “distribution information – including artists and song trends, and performance on digital platforms [plus] critical business information such as pricing, contractual terms and strategic relationships”.
Majster argued that much of this data is already “easily publicly available or accessible” through existing market intelligence services.
“I do not see how this Downtown data provides any insight that UMG doesn’t already have.”
Michaël Majster, Majster & Nehmé
“You can see the number of streams for each title on Spotify, for example,” he noted, adding that labels routinely use specialized tools like Luminate and Chartmetric plus ” for in-depth market analysis.
“When [I’m] negotiating on behalf of artists with a major like UMG it is clear to me that [Universal] already has highly sophisticated tools that allow it to understand the music market and all market trends,” Majster said.
“Acquiring Downtown will not change the situation significantly in this respect.”
Europe’s competition regulator confirmed in July that it had opened an in-depth (Phase 2) inquiry into UMG’s proposed $775 million acquisition of Downtown, following an initial Phase 1 investigation.
The EC has cited preliminary concerns that the transaction may allow UMG to “reduce competition in the wholesale market for the distribution of recorded music in the European Economic Area by acquiring commercially sensitive data of its rival record labels.”
The original November 26 deadline for the investigation’s completion was recently extended to December 10.
Addressing specific concerns about UMG accessing artist royalty data via Curve Royalty Systems, Majster questioned the practical value of doing so for the major.
“I do not understand how the data reflected in artists’ royalty statements could be of any interest whatsoever to a label [considering signing them],” he said.
“When you enter into negotiations with an artist — whether through their manager, their lawyer, or directly with the artist — you can simply request this information,” Majster said, noting that competing labels usually receive the same information simultaneously during bidding wars.
“Negotiations are based more on what an artist wants to achieve in the future, which is not necessarily correlated with what they have already in their contracts.”
“I do not understand how the data reflected in artists’ royalty statements could be of any interest whatsoever to a label… When you enter into negotiations with an artist, you can simply request this information.”
Michaël Majster, Majster & Nehmé
Addressing fears about UMG using Downtown or FUGA’s data to identify emerging artists and sign them ahead of independent labels, Majster was skeptical.
“The entire market has so much access to data,” he said. “They can all see the streams on a weekly basis of every song in the world in every country.
“I do not see how this Downtown data provides any insight that UMG doesn’t already have.”
He pointed to existing major-owned distribution services – Sony‘s the Orchard, Universal’s Virgin Music Group, and Warner‘s ADA – as evidence.
“If the [internal partner label] data from a distributor was so important, then we would have already seen the disruptive effects on the business of the majors using their data from, for example, The Orchard, Virgin [Music Group], and ADA to advantage themselves. Has anyone really felt that?”
Universal has proposed acquiring Downtown (plus FUGA and Curve) through its indie-servicing division, Virgin Music Group (VMG).
Earlier this year, VMG co-CEOs JT Myers and Nat Pastor addressed internal data protection concerns in a letter to staff, stating: “Betraying the trust our clients have bestowed on us would be self-destructive: they would quickly, and quite rightly, end the relationship. Which is why we’re proud to say that since the day we entered this business, we have never had a single complaint of misuse of client information of any kind.”
Majster emphasized that any data misuse by a Downtown-owning UMG would trigger severe consequences: “Any misuse of this data would cause significant reputational damage and could result in severe sanctions from the competent authorities in the various European countries.”
He noted that such data would typically fall under GDPR protections in Europe, and would likely be covered by confidentiality agreements between Curve and its clients.
Crucially, he noted the absence of documented cases of major labels misusing distribution or services data to date. “Never!” he stated when asked about such instances over the past decade, adding that concerns around potential UMG data misuse appear to lack specific examples of problematic practices.
“No specific cases are given [by critics of the Downtown deal] to illustrate these fears or any potentially problematic practices,” Majster observed.
UMG has maintained confidence that its Downtown acquisition will create “an improved offering in the growing and highly competitive label services category.”Music Business Worldwide
The captain of an oil tanker believed to be part of Russia’s “shadow fleet” of vessels used to evade sanctions has been charged by French authorities.
The Chinese national was handed one count of refusing to follow instructions from the French navy and told to attend a court hearing in the northern coastal city of Brest next February.
The Boracay left Russia last month and was off the coast of Denmark when unidentified drones forced the temporary closure of several airports last week.
The tanker was boarded by French soldiers earlier this week because it was on a list of vessels subject to EU sanctions for carrying Russian oil exports. Russian President Vladimir Putin called France’s actions “piracy”.
The Kremlin had previously denied any knowledge of the vessel.
The Boracay is currently registered in Benin, but has changed name and flag several times in recent years as part of alleged efforts to evade sanctions brought in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The French prosecutor’s office said the captain was unable to give a coherent answer about the flag the ship was carrying.
He and the second captain, also a Chinese national, had been detained since Tuesday while French authorities investigated them on suspicion of two offences: refusing to comply with naval orders and failing to justify the nationality of the ship’s flag.
The second captain was released without charges after being questioned.
The Boracay is now anchored near the port of Saint-Nazaire, down the coast from Brest.
Under international maritime law, naval forces can stop a merchant vessel at sea if they have reasonable suspicion that the vessel is without a nationality.
Many Western countries have imposed sanctions on Russian energy by limiting imports and capping the price of its oil in response to the war in Ukraine.
To evade these sanctions, Moscow has built up what has been referred to as a “shadow fleet” of tankers whose ownership and movements could be obscured.
Russia is believed to have a fleet of several hundred tankers that are registered in other countries and are used to export its petrol. French President Emmanuel Macron has said Russia’s shadow fleet contained between 600 and 1,000 ships.
The Boracay was detained by Estonian authorities earlier this year for sailing without a valid country flag.
It had set off from the Russian port of Primorsk outside Saint Petersburg on 20 September and sailed through the Baltic Sea and past Denmark, before entering the North Sea and carrying on through the English Channel.
It had been scheduled to arrive in Vadinar in north-western India on 20 October, according to data from the Marine Traffic tracking website.
The separate question of whether the tanker was used to launch last week’s drone incursion into Danish airspace remains unresolved.
Macron refused to be drawn on the issue while attending a summit on EU security in Copenhagen on Wednesday.
That summit came in direct response to events in Denmark, as well as incursions into several other European nations in recent weeks.
The drones over Denmark appeared over several of its airports and military bases, though Danish authorities have said there was no evidence to suggest Russian involvement.
Poland, Estonia and Romania have reported having their airspace violated by either drones or Russian fighter jets. Moscow denied violating Estonian airspace and said the other incursions were accidental.
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