Walter Koenig, who brought humor and grit to the role of starship navigator Pavel Chekov on the classic 1960s sci-fi TV series Star Trek and seven subsequent feature films, has died at the age of 90.

“My heart is heavy. Walter Koenig, our Ensign Pavel Chekov, passed away early today,” George Takei, who ‌starred alongside Koenig in the show and was a long-time friend, wrote on Facebook on Monday.

Koenig died at his home in Los Angeles, The Associated Press reported, citing his talent agent.

Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry picked Koenig, who had played only a few prior roles on television, when he decided to add a Russian character to the crew of the fictional Starship Enterprise.

The introduction of a Russian officer who worked harmoniously with a racially ⁠and culturally diverse crew came amid the real-world Cold War tensions of the era.

“We were stating tacitly that peoples of all races and creeds, nationalities could not only co-exist but care for each other deeply, and in doing so we were heralding a future that was very optimistic,” Koenig once told a BBC interviewer.

While Koenig was the son of Russian Jewish immigrants, he used an inauthentic Russian accent that was sometimes played for laughs.

The original TV series ran for three seasons, from 1966 to 1969. Koenig appeared on 36 episodes, and then in seven movies from 1979 to 1994.

“I was informed while I was still there at my audition that I had the role,” Koenig told the Joplin Globe in 2008.

“It ‌seemed like ⁠an engagement that might work out over several episodes, but I had no idea that it would totally shape my career and my life.”

The show remained popular in syndicated reruns and inspired several later TV series and a succession of films. It attracted a devoted worldwide fan base and earned an enduring place in pop culture.

Koenig’s Star Trek fame was a blessing and a curse, as it ⁠was for cast mates such as William Shatner (Captain Kirk), Leonard Nimoy (Spock), DeForest Kelley (Dr McCoy), Nichelle Nichols (Uhura), James Doohan (Scotty) and Takei, who played Lieutenant Sulu.

They were often typecast because they were so closely associated with Star Trek.

“Most of the ‘70s, I didn’t work at all, and I blamed ⁠it on typecasting,” Koenig told the St. Petersburg Times in 1998.

He later landed a regular role on the 1990s sci-fi series Babylon 5 and was an author, script writer and occasional director.

Koenig was born on Sept 14, 1936, raised in New York ⁠City and attended the University of California, Los Angeles, before beginning his professional acting career.

He suffered a personal tragedy in 2010 when his son, actor Andrew Koenig, took his own life. Koenig married his wife Judy in 1965. They also had a daughter, actress Danielle Koenig.

Two states along India’s eastern coast were preparing to evacuate thousands of people ahead of Cyclone ​Arnab, which is expected to make landfall ‌on Wednesday, as one of them said it would close schools in some districts for two days.

Arnab, which formed over ​the Bay of Bengal before intensifying into ​a cyclonic storm, is expected to make landfall ⁠in Andhra Pradesh state by Wednesday morning, with gusts of ​as much as 140 kph (87 mph), India’s weather office ​said.

The cyclone will probably intensify further, it added.

The weather system is expected to bring heavy to extremely heavy rainfall to Andhra ​Pradesh’s northern and central coastal districts, and southern ​regions of neighbouring Odisha.

Andhra Pradesh has called for boats at ‌sea ⁠to return ashore and ordered speedy restoration of power in case of disruptions.

A senior Andhra Pradesh disaster management official told Reuters on Monday the state government had ​identified 570,000 people ​as vulnerable ⁠and evacuations would start on Monday evening.

Odisha’s government announced the closure of schools and ​colleges in five districts for Tuesday and ​Wednesday, ⁠and said it was preparing to move residents of low-lying areas to cyclone shelters.

The Bay of Bengal is one ⁠of ​the world’s major regions for ​tropical cyclones.

Billionaire American investor Bill Ackman on Sunday said that Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich should not serve in Israel’s next government, saying the two far-right politicians had caused enormous damage to the country’s reputation.

The public intervention by the prominent hedge fund manager, who is Jewish, comes just two days before Israel’s general election, in which polls show a tight race between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition and the opposition.

Ackman wrote on X that from the perspective of someone who had an understanding of how Israel was perceived in the United States, “Ben-Gvir and Smotrich have caused Israel enormous reputational damage with their statements and actions”.

The founder of Pershing Square Capital Management, who praised Netanyahu last week, said a government without the two ministers would send a message that Israel was “turning a new page”.

“This will allow Israel to rebuild lost credibility, increase the opportunity for an expansion of the Abraham Accords, and enjoy a better relationship with Democrats and Republicans and Americans at large,” he said.

The Abraham Accords are the 2020 agreement, mediated by US President Donald Trump’s first administration, that saw Israel establish relations with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. It later re-established official ties with Morocco.

Representatives for Ben-Gvir and Smotrich did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

As ministers in Netanyahu’s religious-nationalist coalition, Ben-Gvir and Smotrich have overseen policies widely perceived as discriminatory against Israel’s minority Arab population and Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank.

Several countries, including Britain, Canada and Australia, have imposed sanctions on the two ministers over accusations that they have incited violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.

Ben-Gvir’s Jewish Power party is projected to win around 10 parliamentary seats at Tuesday’s election, up from 6, while Smotrich’s Religious Zionism is projected to win 8, up from 7.

Ackman, who was visiting Israel last week, and who along with his wife Neri Oxman owns 5 per cent of the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, supported Trump’s candidacy for president in 2024. Trump last week publicly endorsed Netanyahu for prime minister.

Nimrod Goren, the president of Israeli think tank Mitvim, said Ackman’s statement appeared to reflect a desire among Trump’s circles for Netanyahu to drop his far-right allies after the vote to form a ‘unity government’ with opposition parties.

However, Gadi Eisenkot, the leading challenger to Netanyahu, and other opposition party leaders have ruled out forming a government with Israel’s longest-serving prime minister.

Speaking at a Tel Aviv conference on Thursday, Ackman praised Netanyahu, who he said had done a good job in protecting and defending Israel since the Oct 7, 2023 Hamas attack.

Thousands of Israelis rallied in Tel Aviv on Saturday, calling for an independent inquiry into the attack that killed around 1,200 people.

Relations between United States President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky took a sharp downward turn in recent weeks, with each leader openly criticising the other.

The two have long had a testy relationship, but Trump’s frustration over Ukrainian strikes on Russian energy infrastructure triggered a crisis that Kyiv’s supporters fear could threaten vital US support going forward.

Here’s how the relationship soured:

What is the history of Trump-Zelensky tensions?

Trump has been skeptical of US involvement in Ukraine ever since his first term when, shortly after taking office in early 2017, he was asked to provide lethal aid to Ukraine and approved the sale of Javelin missiles to Kyiv.

“Everyone around him wanted him to do it, and they pushed him hard and he eventually signed off on selling them Javelins, very reluctantly,” said a former senior Trump administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “He didn’t consider it a core US interest. It was a European issue.”

Trump’s first major encounter with Zelensky came in a July 2019 phone call in which the Republican president asked the Ukrainian leader to investigate his Democratic rival Joe Biden and his son Hunter, in exchange for military support Congress had authorised.

That episode led to Trump’s first impeachment. Biden beat Trump in the 2020 presidential election.

Trump also has fostered a relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin that runs against the norms of US foreign policy but echoes his warm ties with authoritarian leaders Xi Jinping of China and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un.

“Trump has always wanted better relations with Russia,” the former official said.

What deepened the rift between the two leaders?

Trump’s current frustration centres on Kyiv’s attacks on Russian diesel infrastructure.

Diesel prices have hit record highs since the US and Israel launched a war against Iran in February, and global energy costs spiked. US lawmakers in Trump’s Republican party face voter anger over inflation ahead of the Nov 3 midterm elections.

On Sept 13, Trump began publicly calling on Ukraine to stop targeting diesel infrastructure. The following week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington was also concerned that Ukraine had hit US-linked oil shipments.

Ukraine has refused to halt the strikes, saying its long-range drone campaign is its only viable response to nearly five years of Russian bombardment. Moscow was forced in July to ban diesel exports as part of a raft of measures to address domestic fuel shortages.

Angered by Zelensky’s defiance, Trump on Oct 9 announced a deal to buy diesel from Moscow, issuing a temporary general license that allows Russian diesel to reach the global market. He also waived sanctions on Russia authorised by a bill he signed into law in September.

Suriya Jayanti, a former US official who runs a power sector company in Ukraine, said Russia’s strikes on Ukraine’s power grid have increased, despite Trump unilaterally announcing an energy ceasefire on Oct 11.

“It is clear to everyone in Kyiv that the goal is not actually an energy ceasefire, but it is really just an effort to hobble Ukraine and give Russia a decisive advantage,” said Jayanti, who is also a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council think tank.

Has the US threatened to cut off support to Ukraine?

Zelensky has said Ukrainian military officials had been threatened by US counterparts, who said continuing the energy strikes would lead the US to cut off intelligence sharing. A US official familiar with the situation disputed Kyiv’s account.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the US official said there has been no increase in pressure on Ukraine.

We don’t have to pressure Zelensky. If he wants to make a deal he’ll make a deal. I think Putin is putting a ton of pressure on him and he (Zelensky) is putting some pressure on Russia but Russia doesn’t seem to be minding it as much even though they are getting hit.”

On Thursday, Trump said he had asked SpaceX CEO Elon Musk to restore Ukraine’s access to the company’s Starlink satellite system. Starlink’s disruption temporarily hampered Kyiv’s military drone operations and spurred fears that Kyiv would be left defenceless against Russia’s attacks going into the winter.

What is the status of Moscow-Kyiv peace talks?

Peace efforts have continued but so far have not yielded tangible results.

At talks in Oslo on October 20, Ukraine presented new proposals, and Trump’s son-in-law and envoy Jared Kushner repeated Trump’s demand that Ukraine stop attacking Russian diesel refineries.

The next day, envoy Witkoff — a close friend of Trump’s — met Putin in St. Petersburg. Putin agreed to release detained American Stephen Hubbard in what the two countries called a goodwill gesture.

Zelensky said on Friday that negotiators from Ukraine, Russia and the US would meet in Abu Dhabi in the first half of November, a possible precursor to a meeting of the three countries’ leaders. The last US-mediated peace talks took place in February.

Foreign policy is rarely the deciding factor in US midterm elections, when economic considerations usually drive voters choices.

But this time, with Donald Trump’s war on Iran and his sweeping tariff campaign pushing up costs for Americans, a presidents approach to world affairs has itself become a pocketbook issue.

As the November 3 elections approach, there are growing signs that voters are drawing that connection directly, creating a major liability for Trump and his fellow Republicans and imperilling their control of Congress.

Those include a Reuters/Ipsos poll earlier this month showing some 78 per cent of Americans blame Trump’s policies for rising prices that are outpacing their earnings.

Not since 2006, when then-president George W Bush’s Republicans lost both legislative chambers while he was mired in the unpopular Iraq war, has a US leaders handling of international events appeared so central to shaping the midterms outcome.

The political backlash for Trump could be even bigger, with opinion polls showing that voters feel the economic pain from high gas prices and rising grocery bills in a way that they didn’t two decades ago.

The bottom line is people are experiencing the impact of Trump’s war and other policies, said Christopher Preble, a senior fellow at the Stimson Centre think tank in Washington. Now voters have a chance to register their discontent with how he’s dealing with all this.

Politics driving foreign policy

With Trump’s approval ratings touching historic lows, he has left little doubt, despite his public claims to the contrary, that he sees the straight line voters are drawing between his foreign policy and their cost of living.

That has prompted some controversial policy moves in the run-up to the elections.

Chief among them was Trump’s lifting of sanctions on Russian diesel exports aimed at bringing down fuel prices, a step his critics, including some fellow Republicans, say reinforces the impression that he is increasingly siding with Moscow in its war in Ukraine.

He has also pressed Kyiv to halt strikes on Russian refineries as he tries to shift the blame for high US gasoline prices despite experts saying the surge in energy costs is mainly the result of the war he launched alongside Israel against Iran nearly eight months ago.

At the same time, he has promised not to order any new attack on Iran before the midterms, though the US and Israel are widely reported to be preparing for a possible major escalation after the elections.

Polls have shown that most voters oppose the war initiated by Trump, who had campaigned on avoiding new foreign interventions. He has insisted Americans should accept temporarily higher gas prices so that he can block Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

Iran says its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes. The UN nuclear watchdog and US intelligence community have assessed that Tehran shuttered a nuclear weapons development programme in 2003.

Some Republican candidates have distanced themselves from Trump on matters ranging from the conflict in the Middle East to the trade war with Canada and his pressure campaign against Ukraine.

For its part, Iran has sought to keep oil prices high and hurt Trump in the midterms by deploying new tactics to target ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz and deliberately prolonging the diplomatic stalemate, senior Iranian officials have told Reuters.

Defending the administration’s approach, White House spokesman Matt Middleton said: “President Trump has always been clear about temporary market disruptions as a result of the conflict in Iran, but the contrast between President Trump’s economic record and Democrats’ ruinous alternative is clear.”

It’s the economy, stupid

Midterm elections historically have been seen as a referendum on the performance of the incumbent in the White House.

And in one election after another in recent decades, the conventional wisdom has been that economic concerns — it’s the economy, stupid, as the Clinton-era adage goes — dominate voters’ choices.

Opinion polls for this year’s midterms, including the Reuters/Ipsos survey, show that while voters rank foreign policy low on their list of priorities, it is clear that most Americans see some of Trump’s signature moves on the world stage, such as the Iran war and tariffs, feeding into their higher costs.

Other polls have shown that a majority of Americans have also soured more broadly on Trump’s international approach.

The Chicago Council on Global Affairs said its latest nationwide survey finds that most Americans believe the Trump administration’s foreign policy actions have negatively impacted America’s global standing and hurt national and household economic conditions.

Since returning to the White House last year, Trump has shaken up the rules-based global order that Washington helped create from the ashes of World War Two while his relations with allies have steadily worsened and the limits of US power have been increasingly exposed, analysts say.

Legislative balance of power in play

Against this backdrop, Democrats are widely projected to gain control of the House of Representatives in the midterms, with the Senate also seen as increasingly in play.

For Republicans, losing either chamber could complicate Trump’s agenda in the last two years of his second term.

But even with a shift in the balance of power on Capitol Hill on Nov 3, lawmakers will have a hard time reining in Trump’s capacity to pursue foreign policy as he sees fit.

Once the ballots are counted, a big question will be whether Trump will feel either restricted or emboldened on the world stage as he enters what is traditionally considered a lame-duck phase — when a president is barred from running again and no longer faces electoral consequences for decisions made.

“For many presidents who feel politically constrained [at home], foreign policy is the area where they are able to act with relative freedom,” said Jon Alterman of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington.

Analysts say Trump’s handling of adversaries such as Iran, Russia, China and even Cuba or his approach to allies across the globe could go either way — or he could simply lose interest and double down on his string of construction projects, such as the White House ballroom.

Jordan’s King Abdullah ordered security forces on Saturday to respond with an “iron fist” as authorities searched for gunmen who opened fire and killed nine people during a church funeral service.

The assailants fired for several minutes in broad daylight at the church in Karak governorate on Friday, and also wounded 40 people in the rare attack on Jordan’s Christian minority.

Security was stepped up at malls, foreign embassies and other locations across the country, the US embassy in Amman said.

A priest described how he and others ordered people to get to the ground at Saint George’s Greek Orthodox church, about 120km (75 miles) southwest of the capital, Amman.

“A sense of panic took hold among those present,” Theodoros Soueiss told Reuters.

“The gunfire was indiscriminate, and you never knew where a bullet might land.”

King Abdullah condemned the “despicable terrorist act” as he chaired a National Security Council meeting and said there was no room for leniency when it comes to the lives of Jordanians, the royal court said.

Such attacks are highly unusual in Jordan, a relatively stable state in the Middle East.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack in the kingdom, a major partner with the US in the fight against militant groups.

Officials have said it is too early to determine whether the attackers had links to known groups inside or outside Jordan.

“A massacre, a massacre in every sense of the word,” said Tarek Ammarin at a hospital where the wounded were being treated. A relative of Ammarin’s was injured in the attack.

Christians make up a minority of Jordan’s population. The country is home to several biblical sites that attract Christian pilgrims from around the world.

Jordan has been among the US allies in the Middle East to be hit by Iranian attacks this year after the US and Israel launched strikes against Iran in February.

Bahjat al-Rushda, mayor of Shihan village in Karak, joined a long list of officials condemning what they called an attack by extremist terrorists.

“God willing, this country will remain secure,” he said.

Ras Al Khaimah authorities said on Saturday that all beaches in the emirate would be closed until further notice, a day after an offshore oil leak prompted beach closures in neighbouring Umm Al Quwain and Sharjah.

The Public Services Department announced the closures in a statement shared by Ras Al Khaimah Police General Headquarters. No reason was given.

The United Arab Emirates said on Friday that efforts were underway to contain oil leaking from a tanker offshore, with its Ministry of Climate Change and Environment conducting an environmental assessment.

All beaches and coastal areas around the city of Umm Al Quwain were temporarily closed until technical teams completed their assessments and determined the necessary safety and marine protection measures, the ministry said.

The ministry also urged fishermen and other sea users to avoid affected areas and follow official instructions.

Authorities in Sharjah temporarily closed Al Hamriyah Beach, on the UAE’s northern coast near the border with Umm Al Quwain, as a precaution, the Sharjah Government Media Bureau said.

Residents reported unusual odours in parts of Sharjah, Ajman and Umm Al Quwain, but the UAE’s environment ministry said they posed no health risks. The smell remained pungent across Umm Al Quwain on Friday.

UAE authorities have not named the tanker involved in the incident or said what caused the spill.

Since the start of the US-Israeli war with Iran, attacks on commercial vessels in Gulf shipping lanes have heightened concerns about maritime security and the conflict’s environmental fallout.