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The Trump administration has named US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and former UK prime minister Sir Tony Blair as two of the founding members of its “Board of Peace” for Gaza.
Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner will also sit on the “founding executive board”, the White House said in a statement on Friday.
Trump will act as chairman of the board, which forms part of his 20-point plan to end the war between Israel and Hamas.
It is expected to temporarily oversee the running of Gaza and manage its reconstruction.
Also on the founding executive board are Marc Rowan, the head of a private equity firm, World Bank chief Ajay Banga and a US national security adviser, Robert Gabriel.
Each member would have a portfolio “critical to Gaza’s stabilisation and long-term success”, the White House statement said.
Trump had said on Thursday that the board had been formed, calling it the “Greatest and Most Prestigious Board ever assembled at any time, any place”.
Further members of the board would be named in the coming weeks, the White House said.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has been asked by Trump to join the board and will accept the invitation, a senior Canadian official told journalists, according to CBC News. The BBC has contacted Carney’s office for comment.
Argentinian President Javier Milei shared an image of an invitation to join the board on X, writing that it would be “an honour” to participate.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has also been invited, the country’s foreign minister said, adding “we are studying the matter”.
Sir Tony was UK prime minister from 1997 to 2007 and took the UK into the Iraq War in 2003. After leaving office, he served as Middle East envoy for the Quartet of international powers (the US, EU, Russia and the UN).
In this role, he focused on bringing economic development to Palestine and creating the conditions to move towards a two state-solution.
Sir Tony had already been a part of high-level talks about Gaza’s future with the US and other parties. In August, he joined a White House meeting with Trump to discuss plans for the territory, which Witkoff described as “very comprehensive”.
In a statement, the former prime minister said he was honoured to be appointed and it had been a “real privilege” to work with Witkoff and Kushner so far.
“I look forward to working with them and other colleagues in line with the president’s vision to promote peace and prosperity,” Sir Tony said.
BBC/Monika Ghosh
Former UK Prime Minister Sir Tony Blair is a founding member of Trump’s “Board of Peace”
He is the only founding member of the executive board who is not a US citizen.
In September, Health Secretary Wes Streeting told the BBC that involving Sir Tony in such talks, given his record on the Iraq War, would “raise some eyebrows”.
But Streeting also noted the former prime minister’s role in brokering the 1998 Good Friday Agreement to end Northern Ireland’s Troubles.
“If he can bring those considerable skills there, in both diplomacy and state craft,” Streeting told the BBC, “that can only be a good thing”.
It comes after the announcement of a separate 15-member Palestinian technocratic committee, the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), charged with managing the day-to-day governance of post-war Gaza.
Ali Shaath, a former deputy minister in the Palestinian Authority (PA) which governs parts of the occupied West Bank not under Israeli control, will head that new committee.
The statement also said that Nickolay Mladenov, a Bulgarian politician and former UN Middle East envoy, would be the board’s representative on the ground in Gaza working with the NCAG.
Trump’s plan says an International Stabilisation Force (ISF) will also be deployed to Gaza to train and support vetted Palestinian police forces and the White House statement said that US Major General Jasper Jeffers would head this force to “establish security, preserve peace, and establish a durable terror-free environment”.
The White House said that a separate “Gaza executive board” was being formed that would help support governance and includes some of the same names as the founding executive board as well as further appointees.
The US peace plan came into force in October and has since entered its second phase, but there remains a lack of clarity about the future of Gaza and the 2.1 million Palestinians who live there.
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Bulgarian politician Nickolay Mladenov will represent the board “on-the-ground” in Gaza, the White House says
Under phase one, Hamas and Israel agreed a ceasefire in October, as well as a hostage-prisoner exchange, a partial Israeli withdrawal, and an aid surge.
Earlier this week Witkoff said phase two would see the reconstruction and full demilitarisation of Gaza, including the disarmament of Hamas and other Palestinian groups.
“The US expects Hamas to comply fully with its obligations,” he warned, noting these include the return of the body of the last dead Israeli hostage. “Failure to do so will bring serious consequences.”
However the ceasefire is fragile, with both sides accusing each other of repeated violations.
Almost 450 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes since it came into force, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, while the Israeli military says three of its soldiers have been killed in attacks by Palestinian groups during the same period.
Humanitarian conditions in the territory remain dire, according to the UN, which has stressed the need for the unrestricted flow of critical supplies.
The war in Gaza was triggered by the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.
More than 71,260 people have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.
Brought to you by Spectrum Aquatics, a SwimSwam partner, our Weekly Wonders of Age Group Swimming series celebrates swimmers of every age and experience level with age group profiles of some recent results.
Asher Song, 13, Pleasanton Seahawks (PC): Song established five lifetime bests at the Pac Coast All-Stars meet two weeks ago in Pacifica, Calif., highlighted by what he did in the sprint free and fly events. The Pleasanton Seahawk, representing the Pacific Zone Team, led off the 200 free relay in 21.53, lowering his previous best of 21.76 to rank 4th this season among 13-year-old boys in the 50 free and tied for 20th in the 13-14 age group. In the 100 fly, Song put up a time of 52.52 to rank 2nd this season among 13-year-old boys, lowering his previous best of 52.94 set last February. He also set bests in the 100 free (48.80), 200 back (2:03.44) and 100 breast (1:03.53).
Eli Kim, 12, Pleasanton Seahawks (PC): Kim set five best times at the Pac Coast All-Stars meet and followed up with three more bests last weekend at the Pleasanton Seahawks SCY C/B/B meet. At the All-Stars meet, his headlining swim came in the 100 IM, clocking 56.42 to move into a tie for 46th all-time in the boys’ 11-12 age group and 2nd this season. He then set bests in the 500 free (4:54.50), 100 breast (1:04.97) and 50 fly (25.80) last weekend, ranking him 7th, 14th and 22nd in the 11-12 age group this season, respectively.
Hayley Anderson, 11, Wichita Swim Club (MV): Anderson established four lifetime bests and narrowly missed two others at the Midwest All Stars meet last weekend in Des Moines while representing the Missouri Valley Zone Team. Anderson clocked 32.46 in the 50 breast to move into a tie for 3rd this season among 11-year-old girls, while she also went 2:16.12 in the 200 IM to rank 10th and slotted into 12th in the seasonal rankings in both the 500 free (5:26.59) and 100 back (1:02.51). The Wichita Swim Club product also missed her best times in the 200 free (2:01.17) and 100 IM (1:03.26), both set in December, by a combined 12 one-hundredths of a second, clocking 2:01.22 and 1:03.33, respectively. Her best times from last month rank her 6th and 7th in the country among 11-year-olds.
Emerson Tench, 13, CAC Boulder Riptide (CO): Tench went off for six lifetime bests at the Midwest All Stars meet, winning every event he raced for the Colorado Swimming Zone Team. Competing just before his 13th birthday, the Riptide Swim Team member most notably put up a time of 4:52.89 in the 500 free, his first time under 5:00 (previous best of 5:00.02), to rank 4th this season in the boys’ 11-12 age group and tied for 64th all-time. Tench also moved to 11th this season in the 11-12 age group in the 200 free (1:51.30), 30th in the 100 back (59.03), 32nd in the 100 IM (59.97), and added bests in the 100 free (52.64) and 50 back (27.78).
Alyna Cox, 10, Bayside Aquatics (MD): Cox registered six best times at last weekend’s Speedo Mid-Winter Invite in Owings Mills, Md., winning four of her eight events. Cox’s top swims came in the 100 back and 100 IM, posting respective times of 1:06.88 and 1:07.54 to rank 12th and 13th in the girls’ 10 & under age group this season. The Bayside Aquatics product also set PBs in the 50 breast (37.09), 100 breast (1:22.56), 100 fly (1:09.29) and 200 IM (2:30.43).
Since 1972, Spectrum Aquatics has been setting the standard for excellence in competition. Backed by a team of driven professionals, we proudly design and manufacture high-quality, custom products in our Missoula, Montana facility. With unmatched expertise and an unrelenting commitment to innovation, we don’t just meet expectations—we exceed them, delivering superior solutions tailored to your specific needs and pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in competitive swimming.
In the first study of its kind, neuroscientists have shown the real-world benefits that sunlight gives the brain, beyond laboratory experiments, linking brighter and more regular daytime light to better alertness and faster attention in everyday life.
The University of Manchester researchers wanted to gain a better understanding of whether sunlight exposure had meaningful cognitive benefits – particularly when tested in nature, not a lab. The team assessed the personal light exposure of 58 UK adults without any significant circadian challenges, over a period of seven days. An additional 41 participants took part in a lab experiment that featured pupillometric and psychophysical tests designed to measure melanopsin-driven visual responses – how their pupils responded to light.
The 58 participants wore a daylight exposure monitoring device on their wrist that continuously recorded how much biologically relevant light reached them, day and night. In other words, how the light influenced their internal body clocks. They also used an app called Brightertime, developed at the university, that gathered data on cognitive performance.
The participants were scored on subjective sleepiness (Karolinska Sleepiness Scale), sustained attention (Psychomotor Vigilance Task), working memory (three-back task) and visual search performance. Each task produced measurable reaction times, accuracy and error rates, later reduced into key factors via a pattern-finding analysis.
“Light is a fundamental environmental cue that governs numerous biological processes in humans, including body clocks, sleep, and cognition,” said lead author Dr. Altug Didikoglu from the University of Manchester. “However, despite substantial findings from controlled laboratory studies, little is known about how these effects translate to real-world environments, where light exposure is dynamic and intertwined with daily routines.”
The team measured aspects of light exposure – how bright the natural light was in the 30 minutes to two hours before each phone-based cognitive test, how bright the day was overall, when the darkest periods occurred (usually when lights were off at bedtime) and how regular or irregular the participants’ daily time in natural light was.
Importantly, the researchers examined both immediate light exposure before each test and broader weekly patterns, which were then compared with the results from repeated smartphone measures of sleepiness, attention, working memory and visual search performance.
They found that how often and when you’re exposed to light in daily life can meaningfully shape alertness and cognitive speed, even in healthy adults with nine-to-five routines or regular night-sleep cycles. But the cognitive impact was more nuanced than this.
Recent light exposure (in those 30 to 120 minutes) was linked to feeling less sleepy and faster reaction times in tests measuring sustained attention and working memory. And the impact was strongest the more recent the light exposure had been (30 to 90 minutes), where reaction speed without increased error rates were observed.
Meanwhile, habitual daytime light exposure – consistent across the seven days – was tied to faster reaction times on the vigilance task and fewer errors in the tests measuring working memory and visual search skills.
People whose light exposure was more stable and less fragmented (fewer switches between light and dark) performed better on visual search tasks, produced fewer attention-related errors and were able to focus for longer.
Brighter recent light was also linked to lower sleepiness at any time of day, but this was strongest in the participants with the brightest light exposure during the day and who also had earlier bedtimes.
“Our findings show that outside controlled laboratory conditions, where participants continue their daily routines, both recent and long-term light exposure positively influences cognitive performance,” said Didikoglu. “The beneficial effects were associated with short-term bright light and habitual light exposure patterns characterized by brighter daytimes, earlier bedtimes, and higher consistency in light exposure.”
In an effort to go beyond observational study, the researchers also looked at the mechanisms that could explain this cognitive functioning change. They looked at the brain’s non-visual light-sensing system, driven by melanopsin-containing intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (ipRGCs). Even though the photopigment melanopsin is in the eye, it doesn’t assist sight as such but uses light to regulate alertness, sleep and circadian rhythms.
These melanopsin-containing cells are especially stimulated by short-wavelength (blue-green) light, which sees them signal to the brain regions involved in circadian timing and arousal. Acute exposure to bright, “melanopic light” is known to increase alertness by influencing the brain’s central clock and other arousal systems downstream of it. In this study, the link between recent light exposure and reduced sleepiness plus faster reaction times is consistent with this short-term arousal mechanism.
Meanwhile, habitual exposure to brighter, more regular daytime light – consistency across the week – is thought to strengthen circadian rhythms and support better sleep–wake cycles. Over time, this may improve attention by stabilizing baseline alertness.
The laboratory cohort of 41 participants were used to measure individual differences in melanopsin sensitivity – hence the pupil tests – and the researchers found no link here. So the researchers believe that the positive cognitive results seen in the real-world cohort and light exposure had more to do with the light than their individual biological makeup.
”Scientists already know that exposure to electrical light at night is known to disrupt sleep quality and delays the biological clock,” said Didikoglu. “Our new study paper now shows that bright daytime light is also critical by supporting cognitive function.
“These improvements in cognitive performance may have practical implications for health, safety, and work efficiency, particularly in low-light workplaces, during extended work hours, or night shifts.”
Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni has been re-elected to a seventh term, says the country’s electoral commission.
Museveni, 81, won with 71.65 percent of the vote, the commission said on Saturday.
He defeated his main challenger, 43-year-old Bobi Wine – real name Robert Kyagulanyi – who received 24.72 percent of the vote, according to the official results.
Consulting giant McKinsey & Co. not only has a reputation for rewarding its star employees with sky-high salaries—the organization is also a well-known stepping stone to the C-suite. Take a stroll through the office halls, and you’re sure to pass by a budding Fortune500 CEO.
Just like Google’s Sundar Pichai and Doordash’s Tony Xu, Amit Walia, the CEO of $7.6 billion company Informatica, worked at McKinsey after receiving his MBA. And the experience—albiet daunting, and quite rigorous—set him up to thrive in his current role as chief executive.
“McKinsey was a dream job for me when I went to business school, partly because I was an engineer before business school,” Walia tells Fortune. “And I thought, ‘Look, what a great place to be to learn about business in the broadest way—and, of course, the most intense way.’”
Walia spent nearly five years at the consulting company as a senior engagement manager. He stepped into the role after a couple of stints in management and tech; right after receiving his undergraduate degree, the entrepreneur served as a senior officer for Indian manufacturer Tata Steel, overseeing 20,000 employees at just 22 years old.
Walia then spent two years as a senior engineer at $78 billion business Infosys Technologies before taking the leadership track. He attended Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, another training hotbed for top executives, and took the McKinsey job with an MBA in his back pocket. The experience primed him to step into Informatica’s top role in 2020, but it was no cake walk.
“You really get pushed into difficult situations [at McKinsey]…You have to always have a clear bent of mind to be very analytical, to really distill out the problem to its core. It’s a skill you learn, and that’s the hardest thing in a big job,” Walia continues. “You become a better person by being pushed around by the environment of a lot of other smart people.”
Confronting criticism and imposter syndrome—but growing as a future CEO
Most workers, regardless of title or industry, will doubt their professional chops at some point in their careers. And Walia noticed that even the sharpest business minds will second-guess themselves while working at McKinsey.
“I always joke [that] I felt everybody over there feels like they’re an imposter, because you’re next to another smart person. So you push yourself, and you learn from everybody,” the Informatica CEO says.
But McKinsey employees don’t have time to dwell on how they shape up to their peers. Walia says he was pushed into “complex environments” with 100 moving parts; the burgeoning business leaders are trained to hone in on what really matters, finding the core of the issue. And once the problem is brought into the light, he says McKinsey encourages “hypothesis-driven problem-solving” to remedy the situation—even when it’s ambiguous or something new, and there is no “right answer.” He constantly tested himself in the job, having to validate every decision he made. His McKinsey peers weren’t afraid to hold back with their critiques, and Walia soaked it all in.
“It’s a very learning-based culture. You’re constantly learning, and you get [a] tremendous amount of feedback, which helps you become better all the time,” Walia explains. “I always say, ‘Feedback is a gift.’ It’s not to tell you what you’re not doing right, it should tell you what you could do better. Those are the few things that have helped me grow over time from my McKinsey experience.”
Why McKinsey is the biggest incubator of Fortune500 CEOs
McKinsey has a reputation as a standout employer when it comes to incubating the future mover-and-shakers of business. After all, the consulting giant has minted more Fortune500 CEOs than any other organization in the world.
Aside from Walia, Pichai, and Xu, other notable alumni including Citigroup leader Jane Fraser and Visa chief executive Ryan McInerney have roamed the office floors of the consulting giant. The company has played a hand in catapulting 18 sitting Fortune500 CEOs, and 28 globally, to the top job, according to a 2025 analysis fromFortune editor Ruth Umoh.
A dozen former and current McKinsey alumni told Umoh that the firm’s strategy is intentional, and echoing Amit’s experience, incredibly rigorous. The company cycles its staffers through industries, geographies, and departments, purposefully putting them out of their comfort zone. McKinsey also encourages a culture of constructive disagreement, where all employees—reguardless of seniority—have their assumptions and strategies challenged.
“You start to believe that more is possible,” Liz Hilton Segel, a senior partner at McKinsey, told Fortune last year. “You build pattern recognition that comes from helping a client do something they didn’t think was even achievable—and that builds confidence you carry forever.”
Bobi Wine, President Museveni’s main rival, has questioned the credibility of the results
Police in Uganda have denied allegations that presidential candidate Bobi Wine was abducted on Friday evening as vote counting continues in the East African nation amid an internet blackout.
Wine’s party had said a helicopter landed in the grounds of his house in the capital, Kampala, and forcibly took him to an unknown location.
But the opposition leader has since issued a statement saying he managed to escape during the night raid by the security forces and was no longer at his home, but his wife and other relatives were still under house arrest.
The latest results from Thursday’s election show that President Yoweri Museveni has a commanding lead and is set to extend his 40 years in power.
He has 72% of the vote, with Wine on 24%, based on returns from 94% of polling stations. The final result is expected to be declared later on Saturday.
Wine has condemned the “fake results” and “ballot stuffing” but has not provided any evidence. The authorities have not responded to his allegations.
Speaking at a press conference on Saturday morning, police spokesman Kituuma Rusoke said Wine was still in his home and that Wine’s family members were spreading “untrue” and “unfounded” claims.
He said Wine’s movements were restricted because his home was an area of “security interest”.
“We have controlled access to areas which are security hotspots,” Uganda’s Daily Monitor paper quoted him as saying.
“We cannot allow people to use some places to gather and cause chaos. All our actions are intended to prevent anybody from creating violence or destabilising our security,” he said.
Overnight Wine’s son, Solomon Kampala, posted updates on social media admitting he was getting conflicting reports about the security situation at his parents’ home.
Difficulty accessing the internet in the country has made it hard to verify information.
Just after midday local time (09:00 GMT), Wine posted a statement on Facebook explaining that it had been “very difficult” at his home in Kampala’s Magere district on Friday night.
“The military and police raided us. They switched off power and cut off some of our CCTV cameras. There were helicopters hovering over.
“I want to confirm that I managed to escape from them. Currently, I am not at home, although my wife and other family members remain under house arrest,” he said, adding that the nationwide internet shutdown had added to speculation about events.
“Given the commotion that happened at our house at night, and given that no-one is allowed to access the house, our neighbours concluded that they had succeeded in abducting us and spread the news.”
The campaign has been marred by violence and on Friday, news emerged that at least seven opposition supporters had been killed overnight on Thursday in disputed circumstances in Butambala, about 55km (35 miles) south-west of the capital.
The US embassy then issued an alert to its citizens because of reports the security forces were “using tear gas and firing into the air to disperse gatherings”.
Anadolu/Getty Images
Police on Friday were pictured dealing with pockets of demonstrators in Kampala
During Thursday’s vote, voting was delayed by up to four hours in many polling stations around the country as ballot boxes were slow to arrive and biometric machines, used to verify voters’ identity, did not work properly.
Some have linked the problems to the network outage.
Election chief Simon Byabakama said on Friday that the vote counting had not been affected by the internet blackout and the final results would be out before 17:00 local time (14:00 GMT) on Saturday.
President Museveni, 81, is seeking a seventh term in office. He first took power as a rebel leader in 1986.
Wine, a 43-year-old pop star-turned-politician, says he represents the youth in a country where most of the population is aged under 30.
He has promised to tackle corruption and impose sweeping reforms, while Museveni argues he is the sole guarantor of stability and progress in Uganda, a country with a history of conflict.
Although there are six other candidates, the presidential poll is a two-horse race between Museveni and Wine.
The campaign period was marred by the disruption of opposition activities – security forces have been accused of assaulting and detaining Wine’s supporters.
Rusoke, the police spokesperson, dismissed these complaints, accusing opposition supporters of being disruptive.
Internet access was suspended on Tuesday, with Uganda’s Communications Commission saying the blackout was necessary to prevent misinformation, fraud and the incitement of violence – a move condemned by the UN human rights office as “deeply worrying”.
JeffToig, previously Chief Business Officer at GMR, has been promoted to the Chief Executive Officer position at the US-headquartered Performing Rights organization.
He succeeds Randy Grimmett, GMR’s co-founder, who has been elevated to Executive Chairman.
Founded by Azoff and Grimmett in 2013, Global Music Rights represents a roster of superstar songwriters and composers, including Harry Styles, who just this week announced the release of his upcoming fourth album, Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally, on March 6, via Columbia.
GMR’s roster also includes Drake, Pearl Jam, Billie Eilish, Eagles, and the Estates of John Lennon, Prince, and George Harrison, among others.
According to a press release, both leadership promotions “underscore the continuity, stability, and connection to GMR’s differentiated long-term vision in this space”.
GMR added that Grimmett will remain “deeply involved in the strategic direction” of the PRO, while Toig assumes day-to-day leadership of the company.
Toig has served as Global Music Rights’ Chief Business Officer since 2018, overseeing all revenue and licensing operations for the company.
Commenting on the promotions, Irving Azoff said: “Randy and Jeff have been working side by side for a long time, building GMR into what it is today.”
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“Randy and Jeff have been working side by side for a long time, building GMR into what it is today.”
Irving Azoff
Added Azoff: “This is a natural evolution for GMR, which allows us to continue to set the industry standard for excellence and transparency for the world’s best songwriters and the folks who want to perform their incredible songs.”
“Jeff and I share the same values, the same commitment to our songwriters, and the same vision for GMR.”
Randy Grimmett
Randy Grimmett said: “Jeff and I share the same values, the same commitment to our songwriters, and the same vision for GMR.
“Elevating my role allows me to work with Jeff to shape the future strategy of the business while continuing to work closely with GMR’s incredible roster of songwriters, composers, and publishers for many years to come.”
“I’m honored to lead the business into the future and excited to work with our world-class clients, partners and the entire GMR team as we continue to set the standard for excellence in our industry.”
Jeff Toig
Jeff Toig added: “For over 8 years, I’ve been proud to work alongside Randy and Irving to build GMR into the truly special company it is today. GMR’s client-led approach remains unchanged and has been the hallmark of the company since its founding.
“I’m honored to lead the business into the future and excited to work with our world-class clients, partners, and the entire GMR team as we continue to set the standard for excellence in our industry.”
Elsewhere in the PRO landscape, in a ‘landmark’ move last September, GMR and SESACjoinedASCAP and BMI’s ‘Songview’ copyright database, expanding the platform to 38m+ worksMusic Business Worldwide
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