British artist Morrissey has cancelled two shows in the US after receiving a death threat ahead of a concert in Ottawa, Canada.
A 26-year-old Ottawa man was released on bail after allegedly uttering a threat to kill the singer, whose real name is Steven Morrissey, ahead of his performance at a music festival last week.
The event went on as planned, but the singer later cancelled two shows in Massachusetts and Connecticut.
Morrissey was the front man of the rock band The Smiths, but left the band in 1987 to pursue a solo career.
He is known for being outspoken on issues such as animal welfare and politics.
In 2006, he refused to tour in Canada in protest at the annual seal hunt.
After the threat against his life in Ottawa last week, he cancelled Friday’s show in Connecticut and one in Boston.
“In recent days, there has been a credible threat on Morrissey’s life,” said a statement from the Boston venue on Instagram.
“Out of an abundance of caution for the safety of both the artist and the band, tomorrow’s engagement at the MGM Music Hall at Fenway has been canceled.”
President Donald Trump’s $100,000 fee for H-1B visas sowed mass confusion and panic among top U.S. companies overnight, forcing the White House to clarify the requirements.
“This is NOT an annual fee,” she said. “It’s a one-time fee that applies only to the petition.”
Leavitt added that existing H-1B holders currently outside the U.S. will not be charged $100,000 to come back, and that they can continue to leave and re-enter as they do right now.
Trump’s new H-1B policy also applies only to new visas, not renewals for current holders, she explained, noting that it will take effect in the next lottery cycle.
On Friday, Trump signed a proclamation that imposes a $100,000 fee for H-1B visas and announced a $1 million “gold card” visa that can serve as a pathway for wealthy investors to gain U.S. citizenship.
At the time, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Friday suggested the fee, which kicks in at 12:01 a.m. ET on Sunday, would be annual.
When asked if the policy applies to existing holders, he replied that companies with H-1B employees must ask “Is the person valuable enough to have a $100,000 a year payment to the government? Or they should head home and go hire an American?”
Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon and others told affected employees to return to the U.S. on Saturday and cancel any plans to leave the U.S.
“While we don’t have all the answers right now, we ask that you prioritize the recommendations above,” a message from Microsoft said, according to Bloomberg.
Top banks JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs sent similar messages to employees on H-1B visas, according to the Financial Times.
H-1B visas had previously been a divisive issue in Trump’s circle. Late last year, before falling out with the president, Elon Musk called for more highly skilled workers as did and fellow entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. But MAGA hardliners have demanded that U.S. companies hire more American workers.
In a reply to a post taunting him about H-1Bs, the South African-born Musk hit back sharply.
“The reason I’m in America along with so many critical people who built SpaceX, Tesla, and hundreds of other companies that made America strong is because of H1B,” he wrote in December. “Take a big step back and F–K YOURSELF in the face. I will go to war on this issue the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend.”
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Kyiv in sanctions push as NATO states on Europe’s eastern flank take preventive action after Moscow’s air incursions.
Published On 20 Sep 202520 Sep 2025
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Ukrainian Volodymyr Zelenskyy is preparing to meet US President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York City next week in a bid to urge him to impose stronger sanctions on Russia.
The Ukrainian president shared his plans on Saturday, as Russia intensified attacks on his country following air incursions into Europe’s eastern flank that have sparked anxiety over a potential spillover of the ongoing war in Ukraine.
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The announcement, reported by the AFP news agency, came the day after the European Union presented its 19th sanctions package.
“We now expect strong sanctions steps from the United States as well – Europe is doing its part,” Zelenskyy posted on X on Saturday.
This week brought us closer to finalizing the 19th sanctions package – we expect its approval soon. We will quickly synchronize the package in Ukraine. Russia’s energy resources are being restricted. The infrastructure of the “shadow fleet” will face new pressure. Cryptocurrency… pic.twitter.com/JzgvsQQHHQ
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) September 20, 2025
Trump already signalled last week that he was ready to impose “major sanctions” on Russia, which has so far evaded his attempts for a ceasefire, but only if all NATO allies agree to completely halt buying oil from Moscow.
Zelenskyy is also expected to discuss security guarantees for Ukraine to prevent future Russian attacks after an eventual truce, though Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that he would not accept the presence of Western troops in Ukraine.
Moscow stepped up attacks on Ukraine overnight, firing 40 missiles and some 580 drones in one of the biggest barrages of Russia’s war on its neighbour, killing at least three people and wounding dozens.
Preventive operations in east
NATO countries took measures to strengthen defences on Europe’s eastern flank after Russian drone incursions in Poland and Romania over the past two weeks, and unprecedented reports of three Russian fighter jets entering Estonian airspace on Friday.
Poland’s army said that Polish and allied aircraft were deployed early on Saturday in a “preventative operation” to ensure the safety of Polish airspace after Russia launched air strikes targeting western Ukraine, near the Polish border.
The United Kingdom said that its fighter jets had flown their first NATO air defence sortie to patrol Polish skies and defend against potential aerial threats from Russia as part of the alliance’s Eastern Sentry mission.
On Saturday, Russia’s Ministry of Defence denied that its aircraft flew into Estonia’s airspace the day before, but Estonian officials said the 12-minute violation was confirmed by radar and visual contact.
Colonel Ants Kiviselg, the commander of Estonia’s Military Intelligence Centre, said that it still “needs to be confirmed” whether the border violation was deliberate.
Michelle Jubelirer and Arjun Pulijal have launched a new venture backed by a strategic investment from HarbourView Equity Partners.
Their new company, Soft Shock, is described as “a management and media collective that reimagines how talent is developed and empowered across the entertainment landscape”.
Soft Shock offers talent management, creative marketing services, brand creation, and creative development/production/distribution across all mediums.
Beyond music, Soft Shock also represents comedians, filmmakers, actors, creators, athletes, visual artists, designers, chefs, makers, and “generative talent with a distinct creative POV and an ambition to challenge convention,” the company said.
“The name Soft Shock exemplifies our approach to everything,” said Soft Shock Co-Founder Michelle Jubelirer on Thursday (September 18). “We are humanistic and empathetic first… but we are going to fiercely protect artists and fight to make things happen for them.”
Today’s announcement noted that Jubelirer and Pulijal have a combined five decades of experience as “talent-facing operators driving creative and execution”.
Prior to CMG, Jubelirer’s career spanned roles as a mergers and acquisitions attorney at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, and partner at entertainment law firm King, Holmes, Paterno & Berliner, where she represented clients including Tyler the Creator, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Pharrell Williams, Nas, Frank Ocean, M.I.A., and others.
Prior to overseeing all aspects of artist development asPresident of CMG, Pulijal headed the marketing for the label group, creating “groundbreaking, commercially successful, and critically acclaimed” campaigns for artists such as Paul McCartney, Beck, Troye Sivan, Halsey, Nine Inch Nails, Maggie Rogers, Norah Jones, and many others.
Under their leadership, today’s announcement noted, CMG “achieved new heights”, including the signing of Grammy Award-winning artist Doechii, SamSmith’s record-breaking single Unholy, IceSpice’s “meteoric rise to fame,” the release of theBeatles’ last-ever single, Now & Then, and “historic profitability.”
During their tenure, Jubelirer and Pulijal represented artists who have collectively sold over 400 million albums globally.
Just a few months ago, the company secured$500 million in additional debt financing from investment giant KKR via a private securitization backed by its music portfolio.
It followed a previous $500 million in debt financing secured by HarbourView in March 2024, through a private securitization backed by its catalog of music royalties, and led by KKR.
“The name Soft Shock exemplifies our approach to everything. We are humanistic and empathetic first… but we are going to fiercely protect artists and fight to make things happen for them.”
Michelle Jubelirer, Soft Shock
Said Jubelirer: “It’s a volatile time for the creative psyche – that applies to talent as well as those on the business side trying to build careers – these are people’s lives.
“We believe creative intention, personal fulfillment, and commercial success can all co-exist. It just takes curation and bravery, or as we say, ‘a soft touch with the courage to shock.’”
“All artists are creators and Soft Shock is ready to provide them with the tools, resources, and creative freedom they need to build sustainable, multi-faceted careers.”
Arjun Pulijal
Arjun Pulijal, Co-Founder of Soft Shock, added: “It may not always feel like it, but artists have the power now and it’s never going back.
“Telling talent ‘go viral and then we’ll care’ is a race to the bottom. We combat that by building scale on the side of talent through a diverse network that offers thought partnership and collaboration.
“All artists are creators and Soft Shock is ready to provide them with the tools, resources, and creative freedom they need to build sustainable, multi-faceted careers.”
“At HarbourView, we look for partners who not only shift culture but expand it – with Soft Shock’s focus on artistry, equity, and impact in entertainment, they perfectly embody that.”
Sherrese Clarke, HarbourView
Sherrese Clarke, CEO of HarbourView Equity Partners, said: “Michelle and Arjun lead with both vision and conviction. I’ve watched Michelle fight for artists with the same courage she brings to every table we’ve shared, including our shared passion for the most vulnerable, and Arjun is equally relentless in reimagining what’s possible.
“At HarbourView, we look for partners who not only shift culture but expand it – with Soft Shock’s focus on artistry, equity, and impact in entertainment, they perfectly embody that.”
Acquisitive HarbourView has acquired over 70 music catalogs encompassing over 35,000 songs across both master recordings and publishing income streams.
The company’s portfolio includes music from T-Pain, James Fauntleroy, George Benson, Noel Zancanella, Fleetwood Mac’s Christine McVie, Pat Benatar, Neil Giraldo, Nelly, Jeremih, Wiz Khalifa, Kane Brown, Full Force and more.Music Business Worldwide
Heathrow was among several European airports hit by delays on Saturday after a cyber-attack affecting an electronic check-in and baggage system.
The airport said a number of flights were delayed as a “technical issue” impacted software provided to several airlines.
Brussels Airport said a cyber-attack on Friday night meant passengers were being checked in and boarded manually, and Berlin’s Brandenburg Airport reported longer waiting times due to the problem.
RTX, which owns software provider Collins Aerospace, said it was “aware of a cyber-related disruption” to its system in “select airports” and that it was working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible.
The company added: “The impact is limited to electronic customer check-in and baggage drop and can be mitigated with manual check-in operations.”
It said its Muse software – which allows different airlines to use the same check-in desks and boarding gates at an airport, rather than requiring their own – had been affected.
The BBC understands that British Airways is operating as normal using a back-up system, but that most other airlines operating from Heathrow have been affected.
A National Cyber Security Centre spokesperson said: “We are working with Collins Aerospace and affected UK airports, alongside Department for Transport and law enforcement colleagues, to fully understand the impact of an incident.”
The European Commission, which has a role in managing airspace across Europe, said it was “closely monitoring the cyber attack”.
A spokesperson added there was no indication of a “widespread or severe” attack and that it was working with airlines and airports to “restore operations and support passengers”.
Reuters
Travellers at Heathrow report multi-hour delays and long queues at check-in
Hundreds of flights have been delayed at the airports throughout Saturday, according to flight tracker FlightAware.
Dublin Airport said it and Cork Airport had experienced a “minor impact” from the cyber-attack, with some airlines implementing manual check-in processes.
Lucy Spencer said she had been queuing to check in for a Malaysia Airlines flight for more than two hours, and that staff were manually tagging luggage and checking passengers in over the phone.
“They told us to use the boarding passes on our phone, but when we got to the gates they weren’t working – they’ve now sent us back to the check-in gate,” she told the BBC from Heathrow’s Terminal 4, adding that she could see hundreds of people queuing up.
Another passenger, Monazza Aslam, said she had been sitting on the tarmac for over an hour “with no idea when we will fly”, and had already missed her onward connection at Doha.
“I’ve been at Heathrow with my elderly parents since 05:00,” she said, adding: “We are hungry and tired.”
Johnny Lal, who was due to fly to Bombay for his mother-in-law’s funeral on Saturday, said he and his family will now miss their flight.
He told the BBC his mother “can’t walk one step without her [mobility] scooter” but that Heathrow staff had been unable to provide her with one. “They keep just telling us the systems are down.”
Luke Agger-Joynes said that, while queues in Terminal 3 were “much larger than normal”, the airline for his US flight and the airport “seem to be prepared and the queues are moving much faster than I feared”.
He added: “They are also calling out specific flights and picking people out of the queue to ensure they don’t miss their flights.”
Heathrow said additional staff were at hand in check-in areas to help minimise disruption.
“We advise passengers to check their flight status with their airline before travelling to the airport and arrive no earlier than three hours before a long haul flight or two hours for a domestic flight.”
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said she was aware of the incident and was “getting regular updates and monitoring the situation”.
Reuters
Long queues and large crowds could be seen at Brussels Airport on Saturday morning
EasyJet and Ryanair, which do not operate out of Heathrow but are among Europe’s biggest airlines, said they were operating as normal.
Brussels Airport said there would be a “large impact on the flight schedule”, including cancellations and delays.
Europe’s combined aviation safety organisation, Eurocontrol, said airline operators had been asked to cancel half their flight schedules to and from the airport between 04:00 GMT on Saturday and 02:00 on Monday due to the disruption.
In a separate incident, Dublin’s Airport 2 terminal has reopened following a security alert. Suspicious luggage was flagged to Gardaí (Irish police) on Saturday, who evacuated the terminal as a “precautionary measure”.
Travel journalist Simon Calder said that “any disruption is potentially serious” at Heathrow, given it is Europe’s busiest airport, and that “departure control is a really complex business”.
He told the BBC: “These things are all interconnected, so a little bit of a problem in Brussels, in Berlin… people start missing connections, planes and passengers and pilots are not where they are meant to be, and things can get quite a lot worse before they get better.”
It was only last July that a global IT crash due to a faulty software update from cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike caused disruption to aviation, grounding flights across the US.
Analysts said at the time that the incident highlighted how the industry could be vulnerable to issues with digital systems.
While there are unfounded accusations circulating that this cyber-attack was carried out by Kremlin-sponsored hackers, all major hacks in the past few years have been carried out by criminal gangs more interested in extracting money from their victims.
Extortion gangs have made hundreds of millions of dollars a year by stealing data or using ransomware to cause chaos and extract ransoms in bitcoin from their victims.
It is far too early to know who is behind this attack. Some cyber-security experts suggested this could be a ransomware attack, but note that these can be perpetrated by state-sponsored actors as well.
Collins Aerospace has yet to comment publicly about the nature or origin of the hack.
Many hacking gangs are headquartered in Russia or other former Soviet countries, some of which are thought to have ties to the Russian state.
But there have been plenty of arrests elsewhere, while British and American teenagers are accused of carrying out some recent large cyber-attacks against Las Vegas casinos, M&S, Co-op and Transport for London.
Liberal Democrats MP Calum Miller said the government must make a statement on whether they think the Kremlin is to blame.
He referred to Russian warplanes entering Estonian airspace on Friday, adding “the government needs to urgently establish if Vladimir Putin is now attacking our cyber systems”.
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Orlando Magic forward Jonathan Isaac is releasing his new signature sneaker, the Judah 2, which will feature six Bible verses and honor conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Jonathan Kuminga Advocates Freedom Of Speech
Isaac, an outspoken Christian with many conservative views, is encouraging everyone to speak up on political issues and to never be afraid to voice their opinions.
“It’s about free expression,” Isaac told Fox News Digital in a recent interview. “It’s about I’m a Christian guy, I believe that Jesus Christ is the lord and king of the world and lord and savior of my life, and I want to wear these shoes as a tribute to him. And anybody who wants to do the same, join me.
“If you disagree with me, I’ve always tried my best with whatever stances I’ve taken to be graceful about it and truly try to care and understand the person that’s on the other side of it. Maybe we agree to disagree, but I’m never the type to try to impose myself on anybody else.”
Isaac reportedly first met Kirk at AmericaFest 2023 in Phoenix, Arizona. The annual event, organized by Turning Point USA, celebrates American values and conservative principles.
The NBA veteran wing has also made appearances on Kirk’s podcast over the years. Kirk was famous for debating students with opposing political views at college campuses across the country.
Isaac Discusses Charlie Kirk Assassination
Speaking with Fox News Digital, Isaac shared his thoughts on Kirk’s assassination at Utah Valley University.
“It’s tough to put into words. … Really the only thing that I can say is just to speak to who Charlie was. Everybody will talk about what Charlie has said and his stances and stuff like that – Charlie had my respect,” Isaac said.
“Not because I agreed with everything he had ever said or done. Some of the conversations we had was even me disagreeing with things he said. But we always had civil discourse, and he was always prepared to talk about why he thought what he thought. To me, that’s a respectable man.”
My friend and Brother In Christ.. Welcome home!
Your dedication to Christ and Democracy will never be forgotten!
Among Kirk’s goals was to spread the word of God, and Isaac is doing just that with his new sneakers.
“Let’s build this thing as a brand to unite Christians, lovers of God, lovers of country all across the nation, and give them a touchpoint to know each other, recognize each other, but also, to have their faith right in front of them,” Isaac said of his sneaker, and why he places Bible verses on them.”
Judah 1 Sold Out
According to Isaac, since the Judah 1 was “completely sold out,” he decided to enhance the design.
“I was like ‘let’s take it to another level’ in terms of the design. I wanted to move the verse from the back of the shoe to the front of the shoe…” he said. “Just ones that speak to me and to the team.
“What would be encouraging as a believer to be in a basketball game? What would you want to read? What would you want to hear?
“One of our shoes, the Judah 2 Mighty Warrior, the verse is the Angel calling Gideon a mighty warrior when Gideon didn’t think of himself as a mighty warrior to begin with.
“So that little verse is, ‘I’m stepping onto the court, I’m lacing my shoes.’ And right there on the tongue, I have a verse that says ‘I am a mighty warrior.’ And that encourages you to go out and play your best.”
The Magic host the Miami Heat on Oct. 22 to open their 2025-26 NBA season.
Dutch police deployed water cannons and tear gas to disperse a protest in The Hague. The protesters were rallying for immigration restrictions and stricter policies for asylum seekers.
For the first time, scientists have discovered that smell and taste are inseparable much earlier in the brain than we thought. New research shows that odors can actually be coded as tastes in the brain’s primary taste cortex, overturning decades of assumptions about how flavor is built.
Researchers from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden set out to test a long-standing assumption in sensory neuroscience – that taste and smell signals remain separate until they are integrated in higher brain regions such as the orbitofrontal cortex. Animal studies had hinted that this might not be the entire story, showing overlap in earlier processing areas, but until now there’d been no robust research on this process in human brains.
The team used functional MRI to record brain activity while exposing 20 healthy adults to the five basic tastes (sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami) and to matching retronasal odors – smells delivered through the mouth to mimic how food releases aroma during chewing. They focused on the insula, the brain’s primary taste cortex, and used multivariate pattern analysis to compare the neural activity evoked by tastes and odors.
In everyday life, this is what we know as “flavor.” When we eat or drink, taste on the tongue is combined with retronasal odors rising from the oral cavity into the nose. These odors are what make strawberries seem sweet and coffee seem bitter, even though the tongue itself can only detect five basic tastes.
What they found was that retronasal odors alone produced insula activity patterns that were not only distinct from unrelated smells, but also overlapped strongly with those generated by the corresponding tastes. Essentially, the smell of strawberries triggered insula responses that closely resembled those evoked by sweet taste, while a meaty odour produced patterns similar to umami taste. So our nose is an integral part of taste and flavor perception.
“We saw that the taste cortex reacts to taste-associated aromas as if they were real tastes,” explained lead author Putu Agus Khorisantono, from the Department of Clinical Neuroscience at Karolinska Institutet. “The finding provides a possible explanation for why we sometimes experience taste from smell alone, for example in flavored waters. This underscores how strongly odors and tastes work together to make food pleasurable, potentially inducing craving and encouraging overeating of certain foods.”
These findings challenge the long-held thought that taste and smell only combine in higher brain regions such as the orbitofrontal cortex, where signals are integrated with reward and emotion. Instead, these findings suggests that the brain treats certain smells as tastes right from the start, creating a shared “flavor code.” That helps explain why odors are often described using taste words – a wine’s “sweet notes” or cheese’s “savouriness,” for example – and why losing your sense of smell with a cold seems to switch taste off almost entirely.
“This shows that the brain does not process taste and smell separately, but rather creates a joint representation of the flavor experience in the taste cortex,” said Janina Seubert, senior researcher at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience. “This mechanism may be relevant for how our taste preferences and eating habits are formed and influenced.”
The study also uncovered a curious detail – in that the insula’s taste-related neural patterns weren’t static. They drifted over time in a way similar to what has been observed in rodents, suggesting that flavor maps in the brain are dynamic and flexible. This suggests that the brain doesn’t use a rigid flavor blueprint, but a more pliable one that can adapt with experience, adjusting to what you’ve recently eaten, what you expect to taste, or how memories shape perception.
While more research is needed, the discovery could have broad practical implications. Food scientists may use this knowledge to design healthier products that harness odor-induced taste coding, allowing flavors to “feel” sweeter or richer than they are, without adding sugar or fat. This understanding could also support therapies for people with impaired taste perception, by developing ways to boost flavor signaling through the nose.
The researchers will now look into whether this mechanism also applies to external smells – the kind we perceive by sniffing, also known as orthonasal odors.
“We want to find out whether the activation pattern in the brain’s taste cortex changes from salty to sweet when we walk from the cheese aisle to the pastries in the supermarket,” said Khorisantono. “If so, this could have a significant impact on the foods we choose to consume.”
Interestingly, in 2022, scientists found that the nose was responsible for the loss of taste and/or smell experienced by many people infected with COVID-19 – and not through congestion, like with a common cold. The virus muted the activity of olfactory receptors on nerve cells in the nose, making them unable to properly detect molecules associated with odors.
Reuters
Reuters
