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Born in 1884, the tortoise Gramma died at 141 years old

The oldest tortoise on the American West Coast died on November 20, according to the Associated Press . Named Gramma, she had reached the venerable age of 141. Due to a bone disease, she had to be euthanized by veterinary services at the San Diego Zoo.

Born in 1884 in the Galápagos Islands, she was captured and sent to a zoo in the Bronx. She was later brought to the San Diego Zoo between 1928 and 1931 (the exact date could not be determined). Nicknamed the “Queen of the Zoo,” she witnessed the passing of more than 20 American presidents and lived through two world wars.

A very strict diet

What’s the secret to its longevity? This giant Galapagos tortoise has spent its entire life eating romaine lettuce and cactus fruits such as prickly pear. Galapagos tortoises generally live for nearly 100 years in the wild, but can live up to twice that long in captivity.

The oldest known Galapagos tortoise was Harriet, born around 1830 and who died in 2006 at over 175 years old. The oldest living land tortoise is still Jonathan , a giant tortoise from the Seychelles, now 193 years old.

Story by Le Figaro

look at Arsenal super-fan Zohran Mamdani

The New York mayor-elect’s devotion to a north London club shows how the global game is winning hearts across the US

When Zohran Mamdani made an appearance on The Adam Friedland Show last week, the newly elected mayor of New York was expecting the typical nimble rundown of politics, jokes and conversational detours. What he wasn’t expecting was Ian Wright suddenly filling a phone screen with a congratulatory video. The former England and Arsenal striker saluted him on “what you’ve achieved”, urged him to channel that “winning energy” into the job ahead before signing off with a nod to the Arsenal manager,Mikel Arteta. Mamdani cheesed guilelessly as it played before finally blurting out: “I love this man.”

For a moment, the incoming mayor of the most powerful city in the United States was simply another geeked-out Arsenal obsessive left weak by one of his childhood heroes. And in that moment lies something revealing about how football fandom in the US has changed. This was not a politician deploying a sports reference for relatability; it was a display of genuine allegiance that’s planted at the intersection of two different stories about how Americans have come to love the global game.

What Mamdani’s reaction captured, in miniature, is the broader moment US soccer now finds itself in. Stateside interest has quietly climbed to unprecedented levels: Premier League audiences have grown for more than a decade; every big club now has thriving US supporters’ groups; and football has entered the cultural bloodstream through celebrity-ownership projects such as Ryan Reynolds and Wrexham (and its various rip-offs), through athletes drifting into national politics (Cristiano Ronaldo turning a White House visit into a surreal photo-op) and through the long on-ramp to next summer’s big, beautiful World Cup on home soil. The game is no longer niche, no longer coastal, no longer the preserve of immigrant communities or brunch-hour Europhiles.

Mamdani’s politics add another note. His petition against Fifa’s dynamic pricing for 2026 World Cup tickets – which he called an “affront to the game” on the Guardian’s Football Weekly podcast – reflects a view of football as community infrastructure rather than luxury entertainment. It treats the sport as something that belongs to working-class people and immigrant families, not the unfolding late-capitalist hellscape of ticketing algorithms and resale platforms. That stance is both global and deeply local; both socialist and recognisably football-supporter logic.

Mamdani’s affinity with Arsenal lands with added weight because it reveals what the sport already means in the US: a cross-class, multi-ethnic, diasporic, online, joyful cultural force. For a couple of decades now, Arsenal in particular have occupied a curiously prominent place in the imaginations of American progressives. During the Arsène Wenger years, the club became a kind of cultural shorthand for the liberal intelligentsia. They played “European” football at a time when the term connoted sophistication: Henry gliding, Pires drifting, Wenger lecturing about diet and psychology. On the east coast, when matches were finally moved from pay-per-view to the broader availability of Fox Soccer channel, 7am kick-offs became ritualised social markers. For many, supporting Arsenal was less a sporting choice than a signal of curated worldliness.

But this is only one strand of the US’s football story, and not the one Mamdani comes from. He was born and raised in Kampala and Cape Town before his family relocated when he was seven to Morningside Heights in Upper Manhattan, as the great Wenger teams of the early 00s further informed his sporting consciousness. His Arsenal was the Arsenal of Kanu, Lauren, Kolo Touré, Eboué and Song – a club whose African spine made it beloved across the continent long before it became fashionable in Brooklyn. When he says that Arsenal might be the most popular club in Uganda, he’s expressing a deeper truth about the Premier League’s longstanding place in African diasporic culture.

And Arsenal itself increasingly leans in to this heritage. Last season’s alternative kit, designed by the Sierra Leone-born Foday Dumbuya, explicitly honoured its African fanbase. It followed the Jamaica-themed pre-match strip launched at Notting Hill carnival, part of a broader cultural moment that has long intertwined Arsenal with Black British identity and, increasingly, with the US-based Black creative community, where culture-shapers such as Spike Lee and Jay-Z have embraced the club’s diaspora-rich sensibility. The Arsenal that influenced Mamdani is the same Arsenal that helped define modern British multiculturalism, which helps explain why his reaction to Wright resonated so widely.

These two versions of fandom – the curated and the inherited – have long existed along parallel tracks in a country of 340 million souls. What feels new is the way these stories are converging. Mamdani’s reaction united them perfectly: the diasporic Arsenal of his childhood colliding with the online Arsenal of US millennials and gen Z. The Premier League’s rise in the US – via NBC’s deft marketing and commercial strategy, social media, Instagram fan accounts and matchday rituals – has flattened the cultural landscape. A Somali teenager in Minneapolis, a Mexican-American kid in Phoenix and a 38-year-old Brooklyn journalist all speak the same meme-literate Gooner dialect now. And a whole lot more of them are wearing Messi’s Inter Miami shirt. The effect is a US football culture that is finally shared. No longer the province of any one demographic, but a hybrid of diaspora, youth culture, TikTok, brunch spots and streetwear.

When the mayor-elect of New York fanboys over a message from Ian Wright, it’s tempting to treat it as charming ephemera. But it is also a small window into the country’s evolving sporting psyche – a signpost that the global game has taken root here through diaspora, culture, politics and play. In a country still figuring out what its football identity even is, Mamdani’s reaction offered up a clue: it won’t be imported or inherited whole, but fashioned out of all the places Americans come from and the paths the game has taken to reach them.

Story by The Guardian

world

Iran War Raises Costs for India’s Economy, Finances

A few months ago, India’s economy was humming along nicely. Inflation was benign and growth was steady – the strongest among the world’s leading economies.

Now, India is increasingly counting the cost of the Iran war, which economists say will keep mounting if the deadlock between the U.S. and Iran remains unresolved and the blockage of oil supplies continues.

As the world’s third-largest oil importer and consumer, India ‌ships in about 90% of its oil, making its economy one of the most-exposed to the war and the prolonged war-related disruptions, which include the effective blockade of the Strait of Hormuz through which a fifth of global oil and gas transit.

While India has announced a flurry of measures to contain the impact on the rupee and foreign exchange reserves, the latest of which were from the Reserve Bank of India on Friday, analysts say the broader drag on economic growth, inflation and government finances is set to increase so long as oil prices remain elevated.

“India is set for a series of supply shocks,” Michael Langham, emerging markets economist at Aberdeen Investments, said.

Apart from pressure on oil prices, the country also faces supply disruptions to fertiliser as a result of the Iran war, which will impact key crops like wheat when farmers are already bracing for an ⁠El Nino weather phenomenon that often portends drought.

“This will all drag on India’s growth outlook, yet the ability of the RBI to look through the energy price shock from the Strait of Hormuz will be increasingly difficult given the overlapping nature of these supply shocks,” Langham said.

At the end of last year, India’s central bank governor, Sanjay Malhotra, talked about a “rare Goldilocks” phase for the economy as it headed into 2026. Inflation levels were falling and growth remained relatively strong.

The Iran war upended that outlook.

India’s oil-and-gas import bill jumped 53% in April from March, prompting forecasts for the balance of payments (BoP) deficit — essentially money coming into the economy netted off against money going out — to balloon.

HSBC says that Friday’s series of steps may do a lot to limit the currency damage. Until Friday, it had expected India’s BoP deficit to swell to about $65 billion in 2026-27, but now expects the measures to improve the balance by about $30 billion. In 2025-26, India’s BoP deficit was at $25.2 billion or 0.6% of GDP.

India is also curbing gold imports, urging citizens to limit foreign travel and calling for more use of public transport to reduce oil demand.

“DIFFICULT POSITION”

But the macro picture is more challenging.

Benchmark international oil prices surged after the war began on Feb. 28, climbing to nearly $120 per barrel. Prices have eased, but they remain about 30% higher overall, while gas prices have risen 75% over the same period.

As a result, the ‌central bank ⁠sees inflation averaging 5.1% in the financial year to the end of March 2027, up from a 3.48% reading in April, and economic growth slipping to 6.6% from 7.7% in the previous year.

While the RBI kept rates on hold last week, interest rate swap markets are pricing in at least 25 basis points of rate hikes over the next three months and more than 75 basis points over the next year.

“India continues to face deeper structural challenges which has weighed on foreign direct investment, employment, manufacturing expansion, consumption, and nominal GDP growth,” said Sat Duhra, portfolio manager at Asia ex-Japan equity team at Janus Henderson Investors.

Duhra said the energy shock will undermine growth and pressure government finances.

“Any move to rein in public-sector capex to stabilise conditions would risk further slowing growth,” ⁠he said. “This leaves policymakers in a difficult position.”

STRONG OIL DEMAND

India delayed raising retail fuel prices as import costs mounted. Petrol and diesel are up less than 10% since then, compared with 50% or more in some other oil-importing countries in Asia.

Petrol and diesel prices are deregulated, but the government exerts significant influence as the majority shareholder of the key retail companies.

Elsewhere, high prices have reduced demand and helped balance undersupplied markets.

The government has said it will not compensate fuel retailers for losses, a strategy analysts say will ⁠come at a cost for the government, such as through reduced dividends, and so cut its financial firepower to handle the crisis.

The government’s fertiliser subsidy is likely to jump 20% in 2026/27, a government official said. Fertiliser is vital for India’s agrarian economy, which supports nearly half the population, but may be more so this year given the risk of drought owing to El Nino.

The government also cut gasoline and gasoil taxes, forgoing 140-billion-rupees in monthly revenues.

The government is targeting ⁠a fiscal deficit of 4.3% of GDP this financial year, but a Reuters poll forecast it would swell to 4.7% and some economists see it going as high as 5%.

India-based credit rating agency Crisil expects further small price increases in retail oil prices, which will have a wider impact.

“The broader effect will reverberate across the economy through higher-transport costs, pushing up both food and core inflation,” it said in a report.

Reporting by Nidhi Verma in New Delhi and Ira Dugal in Mumbai; Additional reporting by Vivek Kumar M and Bharath Rajeswaran in Bengaluru; Editing by Simon Webb and Neil Fullick

Thomson Reuters

world

Saudi Arabia launches Red Sea shipping route

The Saudi Ports Authority (Mawani) has launched a new cargo shipping service linking Jeddah Islamic Port with Salalah in Oman and the Port of Djibouti, as the Kingdom accelerates efforts to strengthen maritime connectivity and position itself as a regional logistics hub.

According to Saudi state television, the service has a carrying capacity of up to 1,730 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) and is aimed at supporting the kingdom’s import and export activity while expanding links with regional and international ports.

The move forms part of Saudi Arabia’s broader logistics strategy under Vision 2030, which seeks to diversify economy and strengthen the kingdom’s role in global trade routes connecting Asia, Africa and Europe. Mawani recently launched the “Red Sea Express” cargo shipping service through King Fahd Industrial Port in Yanbu, linking Saudi Arabia with Ain Sokhna in Egypt and Aqaba in Jordan to improve regional trade and supply-chain efficiency.

The Kingdom has invested heavily in ports, shipping infrastructure and logistics corridors in recent years as GCC countries compete to become major transport and trade hubs.

weather

India burns more coal as extreme heat and Iran war squeeze energy Supplies

India, the world’s third-largest carbon dioxide emitter, is burning more coal as energy supply disruptions due to the Iran war and a nationwide heatwave have boosted demand for the dirty fuel.

More than 70% of India’s power is generated from coal-fired plants, and energy experts told CNBC that the share is expected to rise this year.

In February, India announced that more than 52% of its total installed power generation capacity came from non-fossil fuel sources, with the majority coming from solar, hydropower and wind. Yet, coal-fired power plants, which account for nearly 43% of total generation capacity, remain the dominant source of energy.

Coal-fired power generation in India in April increased to 164.9 average gigawatts, compared with 160.7 average gigawatts last year, according to data shared by S&P Global Energy. According to the data, coal-fired power generation rose sequentially by 5.6 average gigawatts, or 3.5%, in April.

About 4% of India’s installed power generation capacity is gas-fired and runs on liquified natural gas, of which about 60% is imported through the Strait of Hormuz.

Higher coal burn

The higher liquid natural gas prices have also made gas-based power generation economically unviable, said Girish Madan, director of corporate ratings at Fitch Ratings in Singapore. “So, coal-based power needs to share a higher burden in these peak summer months,” he added.

Electricity demand in India is rising as temperatures surge amid heatwaves. On April 27, data compiled by New Delhi-based air quality and temperature monitoring platform AQI showed that all 50 of the world’s hottest cities were in India.

“Heatwave conditions, with readings above 40-45 degrees C (Celsius), across several places in India have lifted power demand,” Andre Lambine, lead APAC short-term power and renewables research at S&P Global Energy, told CNBC in an email.

He added that while gas-fired generation rebounded in the last weeks of April, it remains “1.5 average gigawatts below 2025 levels, underscoring the continued displacement of gas by coal in the power mix.”

If the El Niño climate effect develops, there could be a “potential growth of 10% year over year for coal-fired power generation in India,” he said.

India is expected to experience relatively higher temperatures this month, which could result in “heat wave conditions across parts of Northwest, Central and West India, along with the East Coast,” the government said in a release on May 2.

While demand for coal is primarily driven by the power sector, other industries are also leaning on the fossil fuel, said Firat Ergene, lead Insights analyst for coal, petcoke, and cement at Kpler.

Additional demand is coming from industries such as cement producers, he told CNBC.

Supplies of petroleum coke, which is burned as fuel, have been disrupted by the Middle East conflict, pushing prices higher. This has prompted cement companies to substitute petcoke with coal, Ergene explained.

Last month, India vowed to reduce the emissions intensity of its economy by 47% by 2035, in line with its goal to become a net-zero country by 2070. India is the world’s third-highest emitter of carbon dioxide, after China and the U.S.

While India’s carbon dioxide emissions are still rising, the growth rate last year was the slowest in more than two decades, according to an analysis by the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air, a policy think tank.

CNBC