Nov. 17 saw the highest number of power outages recorded in Kyiv since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion. Power engineers are still working to stabilize the system.

The head of Ukrainian energy supply company YASNO, Serhiy Kovalenko, stated the following on his Facebook page on Nov. 17:

“There have been emergency blackouts in Kyiv all day. The system has been limited by almost 523 [megawatts]. This outage is the largest recorded. At the moment, the main goal of power engineers is to [restore power to] critical infrastructure and stabilize the system to avoid even greater damage.”

Kovalenko noted that during and after the shelling, the number of calls to the YASNO contact center increased. The company received more than 87,000 calls per day in Kyiv alone. He stressed that “when rockets are flying overhead, we have no answer as to when the power will be restored.”

He also urged consumers to distinguish between emergency and planned (stabilization) outages. “Blackouts are an emergency because we do not know when they will end and how long they will last. These outages cannot be adjusted to the population’s needs,” Kovalenko explained.

In several regions of Ukraine, blackouts were introduced to eliminate the consequences of Russian attacks on energy infrastructure. People are urged to consume electricity moderately: turn on energy-intensive appliances one by one and reduce electricity consumption as much as possible in the morning from 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. and from 5:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m.

On Nov. 17, the Russian invaders fired missiles at the territory of Ukraine in the latest intense wave of air attacks. Residents of several regions reported explosions, including in the capital, Kyiv, Kharkiv, Poltava, Dnipro, and Cherkasy. Following explosions in the Dnipro region, the power supply was partially cut off.

On Nov. 15, Russia fired more than 90 missiles at Ukraine, damaging 15 energy facilities. According to Ukraine’s Air Force, 73 missiles were shot down, including all 10 “Shahids.”

After the attack, half of Kyiv residents were left without electricity. Scheduled hourly power outages have been introduced throughout Ukraine.

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Alcohol has given Qatar a headache ever since it won the bid to host the 2022 World Cup. The sale and consumption of booze is heavily restricted in the conservative Arab Gulf nation.

But FIFA has long been protective of its commercial interests, and with Budweiser as one of its highest-profile sponsors since the 1986 tournament in Mexico, drinking has been as reliable a part of the quadrennial festivities as the sport itself.

Initially, Qatar had agreed to relax its rules around the availability and sale of alcohol for the World Cup. But last week, just eight days before the opening ceremonies on Nov. 20, Budweiser, which has exclusive rights to sell beer at the soccer tournament, was given a sudden, top-down order to move its beer stalls at stadium concourses to more discreet locations. Anonymous sources told The New York Times that the abrupt directive came from the Qatari royal family, namely Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, the brother of Qatar’s ruling emir, amid concerns that excessive visibility of alcohol would upset the local population and create security problems.

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On Friday, just two days before the first kickoff, the Associated Press reported that tournament organizers have decided to ban the sale of alcoholic beer entirely at all eight World Cup stadiums.

Below, what to know about the sale of alcohol at the Qatar World Cup.

What are Qatar’s rules on drinking?

Unlike its only neighboring country Saudi Arabia, Qatar is not an entirely dry country, but it does have strict rules around alcohol. According to Qatar’s World Cup cultural awareness guidance, alcohol consumption is “not part of local culture” and is only served to non-Muslims over the age of 21 in licensed restaurants, bars, and hotels. There is one liquor store in Qatar that is accessible for non-Muslim residents. Additionally, it’s forbidden to bring alcohol into Qatar from abroad. Fans breaching these rules could be subject to deportation or fines of up to 3,000 riyal ($823), though how much authorities enforce such laws during the tournament remains a question-mark.

Drinking rules had been relaxed for the tournament. While normally drinking or being drunk in public is illegal, fans in Qatar will be allowed, assuming no other last-minute rule changes, to drink in specific, official fan zones after 6:30pm.

According to ESPN, there will be designated sobering-up areas for fans who are drunk. Qatar’s World Cup chief executive, Nasser Al Khater, described these as “a place to make sure that they keep themselves safe, they’re not harmful to anybody else.”

Read More: Here Are the Celebrities Boycotting the Qatar World Cup

What will World Cup attendees be able to drink?

Drinking inside the stadium perimeters during matches remains prohibited. Most will only be able to consume non-alcoholic Budweiser Zero and Coca-Cola products. (According to FIFA’s website, those who shell out upwards of $30,000 for tickets in the “hospitality” lounges will have access to alcohol.)

This limitation is not entirely unprecedented; prior World Cup hosts Brazil and Russia also prohibited drinking in stadiums, but FIFA successfully pressured both countries to lift those rules for the 2014 and 2018 tournaments, respectively.

How much will alcohol cost?

Half a liter of Budweiser will reportedly cost 50 Qatari riyal ($13.73), while the non-alcoholic version will be 30 riyal ($8.24) and water will cost 10 riyal ($2.75). Entertainment site Betting.com has analyzed the average cost of a beer in all 32 World Cup qualifying countries, with Qatar coming out on top, at nearly twice the cost of Denmark in the number two spot.

Despite this, it was previously indicated by Al Khater that prices for beer in the fan zones and stadiums would be much lower for fans. In September, he said, “We recognise there is an issue with the price and it is something we are looking into. We are looking at finding ways to reduce the price of alcohol.”

Why are Qatar’s rules strict?

The rules reflect Qatar’s conservative culture. But the country has undergone a rapid economic transformation in recent decades, on the back of a hydrocarbons boom, from a small pearl trading outpost into one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Foreigners now make up 90% of the population.

Though alcohol has been traditionally restricted in the Arab Gulf, it has a long history in the wider Middle East. Wine has been cultivated for millenia, and alcohol is available in a range of countries, like Egypt, Lebanon, and Jordan.

As Donald Trump launched his third presidential campaign at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday, he did so in a state that was politically unrecognizable from when he purchased the lavish resort nearly 40 years ago or even when he first became a presidential candidate 7 years earlier.

Trump bought the Palm Beach property in 1985, when Florida was known for mostly electing Democrats. By the time he launched his first presidential bid in 2015, Florida had gained a reputation as one of the nation’s quintessential swing states.

And then on Tuesday, that reputation was torn to shreds, with a Republican slate led by Gov. Ron DeSantis running the table, leaving the state with no elected statewide Democrats for the first time since Reconstruction.

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Florida insiders say the state’s rightward shift has a clear source: the pandemic, which led to an influx of new voters to the state drawn by DeSantis’ controversial push to keep the state and its schools open.

“That was when it started turning, and then the gap just kept growing from that point on,” Susan A. MacManus, a veteran Florida political analyst, says. “The pandemic really changed Florida a lot.” She points to 2021 as a transformative movement in the state’s politics. That’s when registered Florida Republicans outnumbered registered Florida Democrats for the first time in modern history.

Christian Ziegler, the vice chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, says he knew something was happening in the state two years ago through his discussions with some of its newest transplants. For decades, when he asked new residents why they chose Florida, he would hear the same answer: “Sunshine, beaches, sunshine, beaches.”

The responses changed beginning in 2020, he says, after coronavirus cases started rising nationally. “They lead off with, ‘Because of the freedom and the leadership we have with Governor DeSantis,’” Ziegler says. “The credit goes to our chief executive, because he’s kind of our chief brand officer.”

For years, Trump was the most prominent politician in Florida, spending so much time there during his presidency that he called Mar-a-Lago his “Southern White House.” In 2019, after decades as a New Yorker, he changed his primary residence to Palm Beach.

Ziegler credits Trump with tipping Florida towards Republicans by making Southern Democrats feel like he was in their corner, unlike the two Republican presidential nominees that preceded him, Mitt Romney and John McCain.

“We had a lot of this more establishment, let’s-go-along-and-get-along-with-the-Democrats mentality, and Trump was totally different,” Ziegler says. “So that started the process.”

Florida cemented its status as a swing state amid the chaotic 2000 election, handing the presidency to George W. Bush by a margin of just a few hundred votes. Since then, nearly every presidential election there has been close. In 2012 and 2016, less than two percentage points separated the winner from the loser. WhenTrump won the state for a second time in 2020 by slightly more than three points, some began to question whether Democrats could still win in Florida.

Last week, DeSantis made those three points look like small potatoes. The governor won reelection by nearly 20 points.

DeSantis’ policy during the pandemic, Ziegler says, further transformed Florida into what he now calls a “hardcore conservative state.”

Among the types of new residents who moved into Florida, MacManus says, were older, wealthier Northerners seeking laxer COVID precautions, who naturally found a home in the Republican Party. Families with young children who didn’t want to deal with virtual learning also settled in, and, though they may not have originally been politically active, were motivated by parental rights groups who helped sway them towards the GOP.

The Democratic Party, on the other hand, has struggled to turn out the new Floridians more likely aligned with them, including younger voters who moved to the state seeking job opportunities.

“They really should have made a bigger outreach to independent voters, because the no-party folks—that’s where the growth has been in registration in Florida,” says Craig Pittman, a longtime Florida journalist and the author of Oh, Florida!: How America’s Weirdest State Influences the Rest of the Country. “People who don’t want to be Republicans, but they’re not signing up as Democrats either.”

Between 2019 and 2022, Florida saw a net gain of almost a million voters, according to data from the Secretary of State. But while Republicans added almost half a million voters to their ranks, the number of registered Democrats actually dropped. More than 300,000 voters registered with no party affiliation.

DeSantis is now basking in the glow of a victory that many say is thanks to politically savvy decisions he has made over the past few years. Asked this week if she would endorse President Trump’s latest presidential bid, Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis replied that DeSantis was the leader of the party. A poll conducted over the weekend found the governor leading Trump by 26 points among likely Florida Republican primary voters, a huge increase since August.

Trump seems to sense the threat of DeSantis’ rising star. Soon after the midterm elections, Trump released a statement calling him “average” and “Ron DeSanctimonious.” The former President, who endorsed DeSantis for governor in 2018, took credit for him winning that race win and pushed back on the idea that DeSantis should be credited for drawing new residents to Florida: DeSantis “has the advantage of SUNSHINE, where people from badly run States up North would go no matter who the Governor was, just like I did!” Trump said.

Ahead of Trump’s Tuesday announcement, DeSantis was asked what he made of the former President’s criticism.

“Check out the scoreboard from last Tuesday night,” he said.

When Joe Biden’s eldest granddaughter, Naomi Biden, 28, marries her fiancé, Peter Neal, 25, on the South Lawn of the White House on Saturday, many attendees will likely be reminded that Naomi played an important role in Joe Biden’s journey to the Oval Office.

Naomi is the Biden grandchild who called a family meeting in 2019, when Joe Biden was still dithering on whether to run against Donald Trump. Naomi and her two sisters, Finnegan and Maisy, as well as their cousins, encouraged Biden to announce his candidacy to challenge Trump. That meeting, which has since become another well-worn part of Biden family lore, was an important moment for Joe Biden, who had been hesitant to toss himself and his family back into the spotlight of a national campaign without having them on board.

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The President—or “Pop” as his grandkids call him—will attend his granddaughter’s wedding during a surge of optimism in his inner circle. The Democrats beat expectations in the midterm elections, expanding their narrow majority in the Senate, and losing the House by a slimmer margin than many had predicted. Advisors close to the President believe the results vindicate his measured approach to the job, presiding over major investments in infrastructure and technologies to stave off climate change, sounding the alarm about threats to democracy, and working to unite allies against common threats from Russia and China overseas. The day after the wedding, Joe Biden will celebrate his 80th birthday.

The wedding is the first wedding festivities at the White House since 2008, when Jenna Bush and Henry Hager held their wedding reception there, after saying their vows at a ceremony on the Bush family ranch in Crawford, Texas. The cases of wedding ceremonies held at the White House are ever rarer. Hillary Clinton’s younger brother Tony Rodham married Nicole Boxer at the White House in 1994. Tricia Nixon, President Richard Nixon’s daughter, tied the knot in the Rose Garden in 1971.

Naomi Biden’s event is being orchestrated by Bryan Rafanelli, the celebrity wedding planner who put together Chelsea Clinton’s wedding in 2010. The wedding costs are being paid by the Bidens, said Elizabeth Alexander, communications director for First Lady Jill Biden. “Consistent with other private events hosted by the First Family and following the traditions of previous White House wedding festivities in prior Administrations, the Biden family will be paying for the wedding activities that occur at the White House,” Alexander wrote in a statement.

Who is Naomi Biden?

Naomi, the eldest daughter of Hunter Biden and his former wife Kathleen Buhle, graduated from Columbia Law School in 2000 and is an international arbitration associate at the law firm Arnold & Porter. Her fiancé Peter Neal grew up in Jackson Hole, Wy. and was an intern in the Obama White House in 2015 when Joe Biden was the Vice President. Neal worked on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and graduated from University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School in 2022, and now works as an associate at Georgetown Law’s Center on National Security. The couple met in 2018 through mutual friends, and routinely attended public events together during Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign. Peter proposed to Naomi in September 2021 in Jackson Hole.

Pete Marovich—Getty ImagesPresident Joe Biden, First Lady Jill Biden, Naomi Biden and fiancé Peter Neal walk to the White House from Marine One on June 20, 2022.

Public interest in White House weddings

Public interest in weddings held at the White House has shifted since the country’s founding. Initially, White House weddings were small, private affairs, says Lina Mann, a historian at the White House Historical Society. “That sort of changes as the idea of celebrity in the White House shifts over time,” Mann says. The first closely watched White House wedding was when the daughter of President Ulysses S. Grant, Nellie Grant, was married in 1874 to Algernon Sartoris, The couple were married in the East Room of the White House which was bedecked in white flowers. Adding to the interest in the event was that Grant himself was an international celebrity after his battlefield leadership in the American Civil War, newspapers were ramping up circulation, and photography was a relatively new technology that brought images of the bride and groom across the country.

The only sitting president to get married at the White House was Grover Cleveland, who in 1886 married Frances Folsom, the 21-year-old daughter of his former law partner. Cleveland was 48 years old at the time.

Using a saber to cut the cake

There isn’t much of a playbook for how a White House wedding is supposed to be conducted, Mann says. “Each wedding is really personal. There is not a lot of tradition that carries through to each wedding. Each one is sort of personal to whoever’s getting married and the family of whoever’s president at the time,” says Mann. When Teddy Roosevelt’s daughter Alice Roosevelt was married in 1906, she cut her wedding cake with the sword of a military aide. Alice Roosevelt was a guest at the White House decades later, when President Lyndon Johnson’s daughter Lynda Bird Johnson was married in 1967 and Lynda used her husband Charles Robb’s Marine Corps saber to cut their wedding cake.

A piercing whistle blast officially marks the end of soccer training on a squally afternoon at Leeds United training ground in northern England—but Brenden Aaronson isn’t heading for the showers just yet. As his exhausted teammates trudge toward the locker room, Aaronson places a ball 25 yards from goal, takes a breath and pings a fearsome shot into the far top corner. And then another. Not that the 22-year-old New Jersey native considers the extra scrub anything out of the ordinary.

“Normally I’m the last one out there shooting but today I was just messing around,” he tells TIME in an exclusive interview on Nov. 3. “I ran so much in our last game that I had a little bit of a calf strain.”

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That last game was a stunning 2-1 victory for Leeds over title challengers Liverpool, during which Aaronson ran 8.2 miles—the farthest any English Premier League (EPL) player has managed all season. It’s a work ethic that combined with Aaronson’s deft ball control, tactical nous and passing alchemy persuaded Leeds to stump up $30.2 million for his signature in May—the second-highest fee ever paid for an American, after Christian Pulisic—and has propelled him to be the U.S.’s hottest soccer prospect for generations, carrying a huge weight of expectation into the World Cup in Qatar.

A youthful U.S. team has had mixed results going into the tournament—most recently a 2-0 defeat to Japan and a goalless draw with Saudi Arabia—but Aaronson is confident there’s sufficient quality in the squad to claim a few scalps. The U.S. team’s three group stage matches start against Wales on Nov. 21, followed by England on Nov. 25 and Iran on Nov. 29, with only the top two from the quartet qualifying for the knockout stages.

“Yeah, we’re underdogs,” says Aaronson, who grew up in Medford, N.J. “But going into the World Cup … we want to win, so we’re going to give it our all and try to go to the final.”

Read More: Your Complete Guide to the U.S. Men’s National Team at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar

It’s a hard-nosed attitude that persuaded Leeds United manager Jesse Marsch—who in February became just the third American to manage an EPL team—to build his team around Aaronson and former New York Red Bulls midfielder Tyler Adams, who is also heading to Qatar. “He’s a silent assassin type,” Marsch says of Aaronson. “He’s just the nicest kid, you don’t think that he’s a hard-edged guy, but when it comes to game time, he’s willing to do whatever it takes to find a way to succeed.”

Alex Ingram for TIMEDespite an underdog status, Aaronson has his sights set on getting the team to the final: “The aim is always to win.”

Alliteration demands that Aaronson is dubbed by fans the “Medford Messi”—after diminutive Argentina legend Lionel Messi, who will also be playing in Qatar—although he in fact lists his soccer idols as former England midfielder Steven Gerrard and Spain striker Fernando Torres, who both starred for Liverpool in the 2000s. “I wear my hairband because of Fernando Torres,” Aaronson reveals. “I got [the style] from him.”

Aaronson played all kinds of sports as a kid, including baseball, basketball, lacrosse, and American football. But soccer was always his passion and one he happened to share with his private investigator father, Rusty, who played college soccer for Monmouth University.

“From a young age, my dad always told me that ‘I want you to be the one that runs the most,’” says Aaronson. “It was never ‘train like this, do that,’ the only thing he wanted from me was just to work harder than anybody else.”

The elder Aaronson even set up a youth soccer team in the neighborhood chiefly to provide his son with a competitive sporting environment to nurture his undoubted potential. “[My dad is] the most important character in my career,” says Aaronson. “I’ve had a lot of fantastic coaches over the years, but my dad is the number one person in my life who has helped me get to where I am today, and who I based my morals off.”

Aaronson played for Philadelphia Union’s youth teams from the age of 13, joining the Union-run high school at YSC Sports in Wayne, N.J. He says growing up in Medford was “a kid’s dream.” Aaronson and his buddies would bike all over the town, which is interspersed by small lakes. Summers revolved around playing soccer in friends’ backyards and then diving into the water to cool off. “I was fortunate to grow up the way I did.”

He was accepted to attend Indiana University before deciding at the 11th hour to instead sign a professional contract with the senior Union team, where his 19-year-old brother, Paxten, plays today. Asked which of the siblings is the superior player, Aaronson grins and throws his younger brother a tribute, even if fraternal rivalry prohibits full bragging rights.

“My brother is so talented,” he says. “I always like to say how good he is. He’s going to get more chances as he gets older because he’s still young, of course.” Notably, both brothers scored in their first Major League Soccer (MLS) starts.

As for his own game, Aaronson’s not coy about areas where he can improve. “There’re so many things,” he says. “I can score more goals and get more assists. I want to get stronger, so I’ve been in the gym a lot.” He is also first to admit that going professional in his teens was risky coming from an American sports system, where the established route is college and draft, supposedly providing a safety net should things go awry. “It is a different culture [in soccer],” he says. “With me, it was more about just taking the chance of a lifetime.”

The gamble worked. In October 2020, Aaronson was signed by Austria’s Red Bull Salzburg in a deal reported to be worth up to $9 million, the highest transfer fee ever paid for a homegrown American player from the MLS. Aaronson made the transition to Europe seem easy, winning a league and cup double in both his two seasons at the club. But in truth, he says leaving his family to move alone to a faraway country where he didn’t speak the language was a huge challenge at such a tender age. At the Union, Aaronson was still living at home with his mom cooking and caring for him.

“Going to grocery stores, trying to find the food that I needed, there were just a bunch of things that were tough [in Salzburg],” he says. “I was lonely at times, but I got used to it and I really had time to focus on my football and get better.”

Read More: Climate Change Drove Nepali Workers to Qatar to Build the World Cup Stadiums. It Also Made Their Jobs More Dangerous

The transition from Salzburg to Leeds was easier and Aaronson’s all-action displays immediately cemented his place as a fan favorite. “Leeds are soccer fanatics and in Philly, it’s all sports, so it’s kind of similar,” he says. “The fans are just so loud and really drive us on.” And he’s found English culture easier to adapt to: “I’ve tried the tea, I’m into tea, I change up between coffee and tea,” he laughs. Ultimately, though, there are some South Jersey staples that the U.K. just cannot replicate. “I love the hoagies back home,” he says, “they’re the best.”

While he is currently living alone in the historic spa town of Harrogate near Leeds’ training ground, Aaronson will be joined by his girlfriend—who recently graduated from college in the U.S.—after Christmas, which his parents plan to spend with him in the U.K. “Christmas in England!” he grins. “Can’t wait to see it.”

In the meantime, cognizant of how short and uncertain professional sporting careers can be, he’s been knuckling down to online college courses at Southern New Hampshire University arranged as part of his Union deal. “I’m not really sure what I want to specialize in,” he admits. “I’m just getting some credits done but have been slowing down a little bit because it’s been busy and then the World Cup is coming up.”

Alex Ingram for TIMEAaronson predicts a huge rise in soccer’s popularity in the U.S. ahead of the 2026 World Cup.

Nobody is sure quite how this Team USA will fare on the world’s biggest stage. Coach Gregg Berhalter made the bold choice to ditch the fading veterans—who flunked their bid to qualify for the 2018 Russia World Cup—and instead cultivate a youthful squad with the energy and athleticism to engage an aggressive pressing style. Aaronson’s tireless running and ability to retain the ball under pressure encapsulates the shift from the previous generation’s direct approach to a more sophisticated possession-oriented philosophy.

But whereas Leeds have built their team around Aaronson as the playmaker roaming behind their main striker, Berhalter has leveraged his versatility, deploying him variously on either wing or farther back in deep midfield. “Gregg is very tactically aware and I learned a lot from him,” says Aaronson. “In the national team, I sometimes have to roll up my sleeves and play wider and deeper. It’s just about being flexible.”

While the squad’s talent is undeniable, a deliberate focus on youth, coupled with the fact the U.S. failed to qualify last time out, means big tournament experience is sorely lacking. eMuch will hinge on how well Berhalter, who himself was part of the U.S. squad that made the World Cup quarter finals in 2002, can guide his young charges. Those who know Aaronson best don’t expect the occasion to overwhelm him, though. “Brenden can have a big World Cup, no doubt,” says Marsch.

Regardless of the team’s performance, the popularity of soccer is set to keep rising in the U.S. Cultural phenomena like the success of shows Ted Lasso and Welcome to Wrexham, as well as the fact the next World Cup in 2026 is being held across North America, is belatedly boosting the global game at home.

“By the 2026 World Cup, I think [soccer] will overtake some other sports in America … It’s rising up to baseball” says Aaronson. “2026 is going to be hysteria in the country—and it’s going to be awesome to see.”