Women’s Concacaf Qualifier: Half time score – Costa Rica 5, Bermuda 0
It was a tough opening 45 minutes for the Lady Gombey Warriors in their CONCACAF qualifier against Costa Rica under the lights of the Flora Duffy Stadium.
Las Ticas, ranked eleven places higher, asserted their dominance from the opening whistle and wasted no time getting on the scoreboard, finding the net in the fifth minute.
By the 15-minute mark, Bermuda were trailing three-nil, with Costa Rica’s pace and precision in the final third proving relentless. The visitors continued to press, capitalizing on space and maintaining control of possession.
An unfortunate own goal by Jaden Masters compounded Bermuda’s difficulties before Costa Rica added a fifth, sending the teams into the break with the score at five-nil.
Bermuda will need a composed and determined response in the second half against a clinical Costa Rican side. More to follow…
What it’s like to learn in a classroom at sea
A tall ship that offers a unique learning experience is currently docked on Front Street.
We spoke with David Green, Program Director with Class Afloat, along with Bermudian student Indira Coleman, who is currently on board the Alexander Von Humboldt II.
Set to depart tomorrow at 6, the vessel offers students a rare opportunity to expand their education beyond the classroom.
They told Kendal Trott what a typical day at sea looks like … from balancing academic studies to standing watch, maintaining the ship, and gaining real-world experience within the maritime industry.
We also spoke with Tamara Sukdeo, the mother of Bermudian student Indira Coleman. She shared what it’s like having her daughter take part in a learning voyage at sea.
She says the once-in-a-lifetime experience Indira is gaining — is shaping her independence, confidence, and global perspective.
EU pushes barely available green steel as auto emissions fix
In December, the EU shifted to a 90% cut in CO₂ emissions for all new cars from 2035 from an earlier 100% – dropping a full ban on combustion‑engine vehicles
International News via Reuters:
Buying expensive steel made with a nascent technology fuelled by green hydrogen that barely exists yet?
That is the prospect facing Europe’s automakers, already under pressure from intensifying Chinese competition, under European Union plans aimed at bolstering the bloc’s steel industry and still hitting its environmental targets.
In December, the EU shifted to a 90% cut in CO₂ emissions for all new cars from 2035 from an earlier 100% – dropping a full ban on combustion‑engine vehicles, which the industry had opposed due to the slow uptake of electric cars.
EU WANTS TO BOOST EUROPEAN STEEL SECTOR
Under the new proposal, tied to the EU’s Industrial Accelerator Act due to be presented on March 4, automakers, which account for a fifth of Europe’s steel demand, must compensate the remaining 10% through low‑carbon steel and alternative fuels.
The catch? European “green steel” projects have increasingly been delayed, paused or cancelled, as green hydrogen made with the use of renewable energy is proving expensive and not yet available at scale.
When available, such steel is expected to cost about a third more than the conventional product, according to pure-play green steel hopeful Stegra.
Confronted with such economics, steelmakers including ArcelorMittal and Salzgitter are pivoting to scrap‑based output. Others, most notably Thyssenkrupp, are renegotiating subsidy terms with Brussels.
Data from the Leadership Group for Industry Transition – an initiative gathering governments and global companies – showed planned annual green steel capacity reaching around 28 million tons by 2050. Reuters calculations, however, show that only a third of that capacity is under construction. Around 18 million tons of planned capacity would be in Europe.
“We don’t really have hydrogen available – at least not in the scale needed,” ArcelorMittal CFO Genuino Christino told Reuters last month.
Germany’s auto lobby has criticised the EU’s plan.
“This means that our industry is once again dependent on developments over which it has no influence,” VDA president Hildegard Mueller said in December.
Nearly a dozen executives and experts across the automotive and steel industries told Reuters they expected Brussels to introduce policies to create a new market for low-emission steel and encourage demand. Most expect only limited detail in the initial proposal, with key elements delayed.
“There’s confusion amongst a lot of people after the Commission’s proposal, trying to understand … what’s realistic, what the market would actually look like,” said Chris Heron, secretary general of E‑Mobility Europe.
DEFINITION ‘WILD WEST’
Another challenge is the absence of an agreed definition of green, or low‑carbon, steel. One steel executive described today’s market as a “wild west”. Reuters has found companies use varying terms, metrics and thresholds to market their lower‑emission products.
Switching from coal‑based blast furnaces to hydrogen‑based direct reduced iron (DRI) systems and electric arc furnaces (EAF) involves investments of billions of euros.
Many steelmakers are instead pivoting to a more cautious, step‑by‑step strategy, centred on the electric arc furnaces, which can initially run on scrap before switching to hydrogen-based DRI.
Scrap‑fed EAFs emit far less carbon than blast furnaces, but many industry players say they cannot be the long‑term solution because high‑quality scrap is limited.
Automakers are adjusting, too.
Volvo Car, which had aimed to start using hydrogen‑based steel from 2027 from SSAB, has agreed to begin using scrap‑based fossil‑free steel, later shifting to hydrogen‑based supply once production is in place.
“We believe that there will be a demand,” said Christian Levin, CEO of Traton’s Scania. “(But) we are not commercially offering it yet and we are not yet buying it because it is not yet available.”
Reporting by Marie Mannes, Greta Rosen Fondahn and Nick Carey; Writing by Christoph Steitz and Marie Mannes additional reporting by Javi West LarranagaEditing by Tomasz Janowski
Intel board chair Frank Yeary to depart after 17 years
Yeary’s departure is a major shakeup for the struggling U.S. chipmaker’s board, roughly a year after CEO Lip-Bu Tan took the job as boss
International News via Reuters:
Intel said on Tuesday that board chair Frank Yeary plans to retire following the company’s annual meeting in May and will be replaced by Craig Barratt.
Yeary’s departure is a major shakeup for the struggling U.S. chipmaker’s board, roughly a year after CEO Lip-Bu Tan took the job as boss. Last year, three board members announced their retirement several weeks after Tan was appointed CEO. Since he took over, Tan has implemented a plan to turn around the company.
Yeary served on the board since 2009 and presided over four CEO transitions during his tenure and has dealt with the decline of its manufacturing and the rise of Taiwanese rival Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.
Barratt joined the Intel board in 2025 and has experience working at Qualcomm, and at Alphabet’s Google.
Reporting by Max A. Cherney and Stephen Nellis in San Francisco; Editing by Matthew Lewis
Trump says UK’s Starmer is no Winston Churchill after rift over Iran strikes
The Oval Office comments were Trump’s third broadside against Starmer this week as Washington’s campaign of air strikes against Iran stoked concerns among some U.S. partners
International News via Reuters:
President Donald Trump castigated one of the United States’ closest allies on Tuesday, comparing Prime Minister Keir Starmer unfavorably to Winston Churchill over Britain’s limited support for U.S. strikes on Iran.
“This is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with,” Trump said at the White House, referencing Starmer’s legendary World War Two predecessor.
The Oval Office comments were Trump’s third broadside against Starmer this week as Washington’s campaign of air strikes against Iran stoked concerns among some U.S. partners who see the war as reckless and a violation of international law.
Trump and his aides have long scolded European allies over their immigration policies, lower-than-pledged military spending and hostility to far-right movements. And Trump’s often tepid support for Ukraine and his threats to seize Danish territory have raised fears in Europe about the stability of a transatlantic alliance facing growing threats from Russia.
TRUMP’S COMPLAINT OVER IRAN STRIKES
Starmer has said Britain did not take part in the U.S.-Israeli assault on Tehran because any British military action must have a “viable, thought-through plan” and he did not believe in “regime change from the skies.”
But he has since allowed the U.S. to use UK bases to launch what he called limited and defensive strikes to weaken Tehran’s capabilities, after Iran hit U.S. allies in the region with drones and missiles. On Monday, a British base in Cyprus was hit by a drone that Cypriot officials said was likely launched by Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah.
During a White House meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Trump vented frustration that the U.S. had not been able to land its military jets at Britain’s strategically important air base, Diego Garcia.
“I’m not happy with the UK,” Trump said, unprompted, during a portion of the meeting that was open to the press. “It’s taken three, four days for us to work out where we can land. It would have been much more convenient landing there as opposed to flying many extra hours. So we are very surprised.”
Trump had told the Telegraph on Monday that Starmer had appeared to be “worried about the legality” of the strikes on Iran.
Starmer has been criticized from all sides at home for the decision, with opponents on the left calling for him to condemn the military action. On the right, opposition leaders Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage attacked Starmer for failing to back Britain’s key security and intelligence ally.
A ‘SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP’ NO MORE?
Despite Trump’s fraught relations with Europe overall, the Republican U.S. president and the center-left Labour leader had until recently maintained upbeat personal ties.
Britain has for decades prided itself on its relationship with the U.S., aided by leaders such as Churchill, Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair cultivating strong relationships with their counterparts, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.
The two countries’ “special relationship” spans intelligence sharing and military coordination.
“It’s very sad to see that the relationship is obviously not what it was,” Trump told the Sun newspaper in an interview published on Tuesday. He added that he never thought he would see Britain become a reluctant partner, and instead heaped praise on France and Germany.
Britain, France and Germany all released a joint statement in response to the Iranian attacks on Saturday, saying they were in close contact with the U.S., Israel and partners in the region, and were calling for a resumption of negotiations.
The Trump administration blessed a deal by the UK government to cede sovereignty of the Chagos Archipelago, which includes Diego Garcia, last year. But Trump abruptly changed course in January, calling the decision to give the Indian Ocean islands to Mauritius an act of “total weakness” and “great stupidity.”
On Tuesday, Trump revisited that issue, saying that “the UK has been very, very uncooperative with that stupid island that they have, that they gave away.” The deal allows Britain to retain control of the Diego Garcia base under a 99-year lease.
LESSONS OF IRAQ
Starmer, a former lawyer, has defended his response, telling parliament on Monday he had to judge what was in Britain’s national interest. “That is what I have done, and I stand by it,” he said.
Polling published by YouGov on Tuesday showed that people in Britain were opposed to the U.S. strikes on Iran, 49% to 28%.
Senior minister Darren Jones said Britain had learned lessons from its involvement in the 2003 Iraq war, when it joined U.S. action to remove Saddam Hussein, which was justified on false claims that the country had weapons of mass destruction.
“One of the lessons of Iraq was that it’s better to be involved in these situations when you are aligned with international partners, and as I say, with a clear legal basis in the plan,” he said.
Reporting by Nandita Bose and Trevor Hunnicutt in Washington, and Kate Holton in London; Additional reporting by Sarah Young; Editing by Aidan Lewi, Don Durfee and Andrea Ricci
UK rapper Ghetts jailed for killing Nepali student in hit-and-run
The award-winning artist, whose real name is Justin Clarke-Samuel, pleaded guilty in December to causing the death of 20-year-old Yubin Tamang in north London last year
International News via Reuters:
British rapper Ghetts was jailed for 12 years on Tuesday for killing a Nepali student in a hit-and-run while driving dangerously and over the drink-drive limit.
The award-winning artist, whose real name is Justin Clarke-Samuel, pleaded guilty in December to causing the death of 20-year-old Yubin Tamang in north London last year.
Clarke-Samuel, 41, also admitted an additional charge of driving his BMW M5 dangerously before the fatal incident.
Ghetts was nominated for the 2024 Mercury Prize for his fourth studio album “On Purpose, with Purpose” and won best male act at Britain’s MOBO Awards in 2021. The rapper has also collaborated with high-profile artists, including Ed Sheeran.
Clarke-Samuel sat in the dock at London’s Old Bailey as prosecutor Philip McGhee said he had been drinking before driving home dangerously, running red lights and driving on the wrong side of the road.
He was driving at nearly 70 miles per hour (112.7 km per hour) when he hit Tamang, causing catastrophic injuries and severe damage to the windscreen, but Clarke-Samuel did not stop and drove eight miles home, McGhee added.
Tamang’s mother Sharmila Tamang tearfully read a statement to the court through a translator, which said: “My son had come to this place to study. But because of someone else’s fault, he was killed at such a young age.”
Clarke-Samuel’s lawyer Benjamin Aina said Clarke-Samuel had believed he was being followed, having previously been robbed at gunpoint, and was remorseful for his actions.
Aina read out a letter written by Clarke-Samuel, which read: “I am fully aware that there are no number of apologies that I can say which will stop the pain that the family and friends of Mr Tamang must feel.
“This young man and his family are in my thoughts daily. I cannot express the enormous feeling of guilt and shame I feel for the suffering I have caused.”
Reporting by Sam Tobin; editing by Sarah Young, William James and Sharon Singleton
Grief & Loss Awareness event to honour victims of traffic incidents
Another clarion call today to drive responsibly and save lives.
The Gina Spence Program said the choices made by drivers can make the difference between life and loss.
This Friday will mark the 2nd Annual Grief and Loss Awareness Day at City Hall starting from 12pm – 2pm.
Vehicle fire causes traffic diversions in Warwick
No injuries reported; motorists on Middle Road should expect delays near Burnt House Hill and Tamarind Vale
A reported vehicle fire in Warwick has disrupted traffic this afternoon, according to police.
Diversions are in place at the junctions of Burnt House Hill and Tamarind Vale, along Middle Road.
A Bermuda Police Service spokesperson said: “Motorists travelling through the area are advised to expect delays and take alternate routes, if possible.
“No reported injuries at this time.
“An update on traffic flow will be provided in due course.”
UK’s issuance of long-dated government bonds to fall to 21-year low
The UK Debt Management Office said it intended to issue 252.1 billion pounds ($335.7 billion) of government bonds in the 2026/27 financial year – down from 303.7 billion pounds in 2025/26
International News via Reuters:
Britain said on Tuesday it would cut the amount of government debt it sells for the first time in four years and that the volume of long-dated gilts due to be issued was on track to fall to the lowest in around 20 years.
The UK Debt Management Office said it intended to issue 252.1 billion pounds ($335.7 billion) of government bonds in the 2026/27 financial year – down from 303.7 billion pounds in 2025/26 though slightly above expectations for 245 billion pounds in a Reuters poll of primary dealers.
Within that, long-dated gilts with a maturity of 15 years or longer were planned to account for under 10% of total issuance, down from more than 30% five years ago, reflecting the higher cost and reduced demand for this type of debt.
BOND YIELDS SURGE AS MIDDLE EAST CONFLICT DEEPENS
The market impact of these decisions – and of finance minister Rachel Reeves’ new budget forecasts – was overshadowed, however, by inflation fears sweeping bond markets as energy prices surged following the U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran.
Benchmark 10-year gilt yields have risen more than 25 basis points this week.
“Gilt issuance may be a touch higher (than expected) … but (there is) nothing in the detail that will be driving gilt yields. The geopolitics and the surge higher in energy prices are the only game in town,” said Matthew Amis, investment director at fund manager Aberdeen.
The slightly higher-than-expected gilt issuance reflects in part the DMO’s decision to announce only a modest 5 billion pounds of net Treasury bill issuance for 2026/27, below the median 11.5 billion pounds that dealers had expected.
The DMO often uses changes in T-bill sales to accommodate in-year changes in government borrowing needs. Britain’s finance ministry is also consulting the market on a bigger role for T-bills in longer-term financing.
LONG-DATED GILT SALES ON COURSE FOR LOWEST SINCE 2005/06
Tuesday’s gilt remit shows 23 billion pounds of long-dated gilts scheduled for sale at auctions or bond syndications in 2026/27, down from the 32.5 billion pounds sold in 2025/26.
The long-dated gilt sales would be the lowest since 2005/06, although solid demand at auctions or syndications would usually lead to some extra sales and might take the total sold above the 23.4 billion pounds reached in 2007/08.
The DMO figures showed around 39% of 2026/27 issuance would be for short-dated gilts, 31% would be for medium-dated, 9% for long-dated gilts and 9% for index-linked gilts, while 12% of issuance would be decided later.
DMO Chief Executive Jessica Pulay told Reuters the decision to overweight shorter maturities relative to longer ones was “driven by overall our assessment of cost and risk, and also takes into account market demand”.
Asked if the trend had further to run, she said she did not want to signal a direction of travel as it would depend on how market demand evolved.
The split between maturities planned for 2026/27 is broadly similar to that achieved in 2025/26, when the DMO reduced the relative share of long-dated and index-linked issuance compared with what it planned at the start of the year.
For 2027/28, the DMO said gross financing needs would rise to 307.6 billion pounds, barely changed from an estimate of 308.4 billion pounds in November.
($1 = 0.7509 pounds)
Reporting by David Milliken; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Alex Richardson
US judge preliminarily approves $35 million settlement between Epstein estate, accusers
Boies Schiller Flexner, a law firm representing Epstein victims, announced the settlement on February 19
International News via Reuters:
A U.S. judge granted preliminary approval on Tuesday to an agreement for Jeffrey Epstein’s estate to pay as much as $35 million to resolve a class action lawsuit that accused two of the disgraced financier’s advisers of aiding and abetting his sex trafficking of young women and teenage girls.
Boies Schiller Flexner, a law firm representing Epstein victims, announced the settlement on February 19. On Tuesday, Manhattan-based U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian said the agreement appeared fair. The judge scheduled a hearing for September 16 to consider granting final approval.
The deal would bring an end to a 2024 lawsuit filed against Epstein’s former personal lawyer Darren Indyke and former accountant Richard Kahn, who are co-executors of Epstein’s estate.
Lawyers for Indyke and Kahn did not immediately respond to requests for comment. One of their lawyers had previously said neither Indyke nor Kahn “made any admission or concession of misconduct” as part of the settlement.
Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Daniel Wallis
