2026 World Cup Stock Watch: Which players starred? - ESPN

The 1993 film Hocus Pocus has become a popular Halloween movie in the decades since it was first released. Directed by Kenny Ortega, it centers on Max Dennison (Omri Katz), who summons three witches (played by Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimy) who have been in purgatory for more than 300 years. However, it could have had a very different male lead: an actor little known at the time, but who would go on to become one of the biggest film stars of his era, Leonardo DiCaprio. Here's a look at how the future Oscar winner was almost cast in this early '90s movie. A Rising Star's Big BreakBecause the character of Max is a teenager in the movie, the filmmakers and studio looked at a number of young actors with promising careers when considering who would play the role. DiCaprio had drawn attention for being cast in his theatrical film debut opposite Robert De Niro in Michael Caton-Jones' This Boy's Life, and his ability to land a role in which he was sharing scenes with an actor as revered as De Niro naturally impressed people. He was therefore asked to audition for the male lead in Hocus Pocus too.

Israeli settlers have attacked European diplomats, including a French mayor, near the Palestinian village of Taybeh in the occupied West Bank. The delegation was visiting Palestinian olive harvesters on Saturday when the Israeli attackers confronted the group. The attack comes a day after settlers assaulted a US journalist north of Ramallah. In Saturday’s incident, the settlers targeted Belgium’s consul general, French and Polish diplomats and Catholic representatives, Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prevot said. “A French mayor was assaulted and a Belgian vehicle damaged,” Prevot said, linking the attack to what he called Israel’s “illegal settlement policy” and pledging to push for further European Union sanctions. French mayor Bernard Baudoux, who was assaulted, told the AFP news agency that the violence suggests that “there is a tolerance on the part of the Israeli government” towards settler violence. Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh, reporting from Ramallah, said the settlers surrounded the diplomats’ vehicles, pelted them with stones and smashed their windows.

What researchers uncovered through lab testing and surveillance footage, prosecutors said, was a plot by his fellow graduate student to intentionally poison him.

Omar’s legal team says the search violated safeguards designed to protect constitutional rights of members of Congress. Lawyers for Democratic United States Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota have demanded the return of property seized in a federal raid of her Washington, DC home, accusing the US Department of Justice of conducting a politically motivated investigation and failing to follow judicial instructions during the search. “The political motivations behind this pre-election investigation and search are clear as day,” Omar’s lawyers wrote in a letter sent to federal prosecutors on Friday and obtained by The Associated Press news agency.