A Gaza “freedom flotilla” says one of its vessels is on fire and has issued an SOS, after what it claimed was a drone attack off the coast of Malta in international waters.

Acar said the ship had “sent out SOS calls to the surrounding countries, including Malta” and that a “small boat” from Southern Cyprus had been sent. She added she had been able to contact crew members after the SOS signal was sent out.

Video the coalition posted on its X account appeared to show a fire burning on a ship, as well as smoke. The sound of two loud explosions can also be heard in a separate video clip.

“Our vessel is 17 kilometers off the shores of Malta right now in international waters, and they have been subjected to a drone attack twice,” said Acar, adding that the generators at the front of the vessel were the apparent target.

“This boat, however, is not providing electricity that is needed on the vessel right now,” she said, saying the coalition was not able to contact the burning vessel.

“We have 30 international human rights activists on that vessel at this very moment on a vessel that is sinking,” said Acar.

The flotilla did not accuse any party of being behind the claimed drone attack.

Marine traffic websites list the ship Conscience as flying under Palau flag and show it was located off the eastern coast of Malta on Friday morning.

The Freedom Flotilla Coalition describes itself on its website as an international network of pro-Palestinian activists working to end Israel’s blockade of Gaza and deliver humanitarian aid to the besieged enclave by taking direct, non-violent action.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

The hard-right party Reform UK led by Nigel Farage won a seat in Parliament by a handful of votes and looked set to make more gains in results Friday from local elections the party hopes will show it is a major player in British politics.

Reform’s Sarah Pochin was declared winner of the seat of Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by six votes after a recount, defeating Labour candidate Karen Shore.

Labour easily won the district in last year’s national election, but its lawmaker, Mike Amesbury, was forced to quit after he was convicted of punching a constituent in a drunken rage.

Although Reform’s victory was one of the narrowest in British history, Farage said “it’s a very, very big moment indeed” for politics.

The local elections Thursday in many areas of England were a test of feeling about Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s center-left Labour government, 10 months after it was elected in a landslide. Both Labour and the main opposition Conservative Party braced for losses in the midterm poll.

The Runcorn victory gives Reform, which got about 14% of the vote in last year’s national election, five of the 650 seats in the House of Commons. National polls now suggest its support equals or surpasses that of Labour and the Conservatives, and it hopes to displace the Conservatives as the country’s main party on the right before the next national election, due by 2029.

Farage’s party was on course, with partial results in, to win the newly created mayoralty of the Greater Lincolnshire region of east-central England. Labour retained three other mayoralties.

Reform hopes to scoop up hundreds of municipal seats in the elections that are deciding 1,600 seats on 23 local councils, six mayoralties and one seat in Parliament. Ballots in most of those contests are being counted Friday.

A majority of the local seats being contested were held by the Conservatives, whose leader Kemi Badenoch could face revolt if the party does very badly.

Badenoch acknowledged that the results could be “very difficult” for the Tories. The party did extremely well when these areas were last contested in 2021, a time when then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative government enjoyed a surge in popularity due to the Covid-19 vaccine program.

Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, said the Conservatives and Reform are in “a fight for the soul of the right wing of UK politics.” He said Farage’s “populist radical right insurgency” also poses a threat to Labour, targeting working-class voters with pledges to curb immigration, create jobs and cut government waste.

The centrist Liberal Democrats also hope to build on their success in winning more affluent, socially liberal voters away from the Conservatives.

The United States is stepping up pressure on India and Pakistan to avoid conflict in Kashmir after a tourist massacre in an Indian-administered area of the divided territory last week.

US Vice President JD Vance said Thursday that Washington hopes Pakistan will help hunt down the militants behind the attack, who are based in Pakistan-controlled territory.

And Vance urged India, which has accused Pakistan of being involved in the attack, to act with restraint so tensions do not explode into a war between the nuclear-armed neighbors.

“Our hope here is that India responds to this terrorist attack in a way that doesn’t lead to a broader regional conflict,” Vance said in an interview on Fox News’ “Special Report with Bret Baier.”

“And we hope, frankly, that Pakistan, to the extent that they’re responsible, cooperates with India to make sure that the terrorists sometimes operating in their territory are hunted down and dealt with.”

Vance’s comments echoed those of US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who on Wednesday spoke with top Pakistani and Indian officials and called on the two rivals to work with each other to “de-escalate tensions,” according to State Department readouts of the two calls.

Rubio “expressed his sorrow for the lives lost in the horrific terrorist attack in Pahalgam, and reaffirmed the United States’ commitment to cooperation with India against terrorism,” in his call with Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar.

In his call with Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Rubio “spoke of the need to condemn the terror attack on April 22,” and urged Pakistani officials’ cooperation in the investigation.

“Both leaders reaffirmed their continued commitment to holding terrorists accountable for their heinous acts of violence,” the readout said.

Fears of a broader conflict increased earlier this week when Pakistani Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said his country had “credible intelligence that India intends carrying out military action against Pakistan in the next 24-36 hours.”

That timeframe has now passed.

Militants on April 22 massacred 26 civilians, the vast majority tourists, in the mountainous town of Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir, a rampage that has sparked widespread outrage.

India and Pakistan have since engaged in tit-for-tat hostilities.

India closed its airspace to commercial flights from Pakistan on Tuesday, matching Islamabad’s ban on flights from India, which was imposed last week in response to New Delhi’s cancelation of visas for Pakistani nationals and suspension of a key water sharing treaty.

This week, New Delhi and Islamabad have both been flexing their military might.

Two days earlier, India’s navy said it had carried out test missile strikes to “revalidate and demonstrate readiness of platforms, systems and crew for long range precision offensive strike.”

Tensions have also been simmering along the de facto border, the Line of Control, in Kashmir, and gunfire was exchanged along the disputed border for seven straight nights.

A history of conflict

Kashmir, one of the world’s most dangerous flashpoints, is controlled in part by India and Pakistan but both countries claim it in its entirety.

The two nuclear-armed rivals have fought three wars over the mountainous territory that has been divided since their independence from Britain nearly 80 years ago.

India conducted airstrikes inside Pakistan in 2019 following a major insurgent attack on paramilitary personnel inside Indian-administered Kashmir. It was the first such incursion into Pakistan’s territory since a 1971 war between the two neighbors.

The latest attack on tourists in Kashmir has sparked fears that India might respond in a similar way.

Conditions may be ripe for greater conflict now than was seen in 2019, according to Steven Honig and Natalie Caloca, researchers at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

Writing on the CFR website, the two said Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has “made the transformation and stabilization of Kashmir a central pillar of his legacy”

They said Modi was hurt politically by the 2019 attacks inside Indian-administer Kashmir and will likely feel pressure to be more assertive with New Delhi’s response this time.

Military numbers favor India

Both countries are heavily armed, though in any conventional conflict, India holds a large advantage.

The Indian defense budget is more than nine times Pakistan’s, according to the “Military Balance 2025” from the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

That budget supports an active-duty Indian force of almost 1.5 million personnel, compared to just 660,000 for Pakistan.

On the ground, India’s 1.2 million force army has 3,750 main battle tanks and more than 10,000 artillery pieces, while Pakistan’s tank force is only two-thirds of India’s and Islamabad has fewer than half of the artillery pieces in New Delhi’s arsenal.

At sea, the Indian navy’s advantage is overwhelming. It has two aircraft carriers, 12 guided-missile destroyers, 11 guided-missile frigates and 16 attack submarines.

Pakistan has no carriers and no guided-missile destroyers, with 11 smaller guided-missile frigates being the backbone of its naval fleet. It also has only half the number of subs that India fields.

Both air forces rely heavily on older Soviet-era aircraft, including MiG-21s in India and the Chinese equivalent – the J-7 – in Pakistan.

While overall numbers of air-to-air fighter jets and ground-attack aircraft sway heavily in India’s favor, both militaries have been making recent efforts to update their air forces with modern fourth-generation aircraft.

India has been investing in multirole French-made Rafale jets, with 36 now in service, according to the Military Balance.

Pakistan has been adding Chinese J-10 multirole jets, with more than 20 now in its fleet.

Though Pakistan still has dozens of US-made F-16 fighters, the backbone of its fleet has become the JF-17, a joint project with China that came online in the early 2000s. About 150 are in service.

Despite acquiring the Rafales from France, Russian-made aircraft still play a significant role in India’s air fleet. More than 100 MiG-29 fighters are in service with the air force and navy combined. And more than 260 Su-30 ground attack jets bolster India’s force.

The rivals are closer in capabilities when it comes to nuclear forces – with around five dozen surface-to-surface launchers each – though India has longer range ballistic missiles than Pakistan.

India also has two nuclear-capable submarines while Pakistan has none.

Mo Abudu has a vision for Africa’s creative economy, and the next stage will start in an old lecture hall in South London. The Nigerian media mogul plans to turn the building into a hub for Nigerian food, culture and cinema.

Abudu first found fame in 2006 as the host of the Nigerian talk show “Moments with Mo,” before starting pan-African network EbonyLife TV in 2013, and EbonyLife Films in 2014. In 2019, she launched EbonyLife Place in Lagos, Nigeria, the twin of her new cultural hub, EbonyLife Place London.

Setting up in London was an obvious step for Abudu, who was born there and moved to Nigeria when she was seven to live with her grandmother. Her father died when she was 11, and she returned to the UK, moving back to Nigeria when she was 30.

Abudu had a successful career in HR, but, as she entered her fifth decade, she realized she wanted something different. “I woke up at age 40 and I said, ‘I’m done,’” recalled Abudu.

Her friends thought she was having a midlife crisis, but Abudu says that she had just been too scared to switch careers earlier. The fear is still with her now with her London venture, she says, but her attitude has changed.

“You may be scared and afraid of doing it, but you’re going to have to just be bold and do it anyway.”

A film fund for African storytellers

Now, Abudu sees opportunity for Nigerian films in the UK – but only if they are given the right opportunities.

“Our films are traveling across the continent but they’re not really traveling to the UK for theatrical releases simply because we don’t have the cinemas here that are ready to take those films on,” Abudu said.

She is intent on making African cinema a business that can deliver returns, and says capacity building is central to that vision. Abudu developed the $50 million Afro Film Fund alongside actor Idris Elba. It will open at the end of 2025 and Abudu believes it can fill some of the gaps in the African creative economy, part of her vision of “completing the value chain” of African cinema.

“We’re training, you’re getting funding, your film is getting distributed, you’re monetizing,” she said.

Monetization is the ultimate aim in Abudu’s development of the media ecosystem. “If we don’t build it, we can’t scale the industry,” she said. “If we can’t scale the industry, we can’t monetize.”

Abudu turned 60 last year and, by all measures, seems to be only speeding up. By the end of this year EbonyLife Place London, the streaming platform EbonyLife ON, and the Afro Film Fund will all have launched. She was named as one of TIME’s 100 most influential people this year.

Elba, who worked with Abudu worked on the short film “Dust to Dreams” and is currently developing a feature film with her, penned her biography for TIME, writing: “She wastes no time. She has an infectious, can-do attitude and the tenacity to overcome any obstacle in her way.”

Despite her focus on the business of media, Abudu believes deeply in the need for more African representation in films and television outside of the continent. “It is time for us to wake up and realize that we need to push out,” she said.

“We have to tell our own stories,” she added. “We have that responsibility to tell them and, as we tell them, they must travel.”

British comedian and actor Russell Brand arrived at court on Friday after he was charged last month with rape and sexual assault.

London’s Metropolitan Police charged Brand, 49, with one count of rape, one count of indecent assault, and one count of oral rape, as well as two counts of sexual assault. The charges relate to four separate women.

The alleged incidents took place between 1999 and 2005. He has denied the allegations.

The hearing will take place at Westminster Magistrate’s Court in London.

The Metropolitan Police described Brand as living in southern England when announcing the charges in April. However British news agency PA Media has reported that he is now understood to live in the United States.

Detectives began investigating the comedian, who more recently has repositioned himself as a social commentator, in September 2023 after receiving allegations following a joint investigation led by three British media outlets – The Sunday Times, The Times and Channel 4’s “Dispatches.”

According to the Metropolitan Police, it is alleged that one woman was raped in 1999 in Bournemouth, southern England; one woman was indecently assaulted in London’s Westminster area in 2001; a woman was orally raped and sexually assaulted in Westminster in 2004; and a woman was sexually assaulted between 2004 and 2005, also in Westminster.

Brand has appeared in numerous Hollywood films and hosted radio and TV shows in the UK. He was married to US pop star Katy Perry between 2010 and 2012.