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US Central Command (CENTCOM), which oversees the Middle East, said on Thursday that the USS George Washington had arrived in the Arabian Sea on Wednesday as “part of a scheduled deployment”.

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The shift leaves the US without an aircraft carrier in the Western Pacific, despite Washington’s strategic emphasis on the region.

Last week, the Navy announced that the Lincoln would be rotated back to the US. The carrier left its port in San Diego last November and deployed off the coast of Venezuela before being rerouted after the US and Israel launched their war with Iran on February 28.

It set a US naval record for the longest deployment without a port stop.

The situation gained renewed attention last week amid reports of paltry food and hygiene supplies on board, as well as maintenance issues from the prolonged time at sea.

The families of several members of the approximately 5,000 sailors and Marines on board also detailed the mission’s mental health toll, including several accounts to US media of individuals seeking to jump overboard.

Several Democratic legislators have charged that the situation is emblematic of the Trump administration’s poor planning for the war, which has turned into a grinding asymmetrical conflict after nearly six months, with no clear end in sight.

Even as fighting has recently paused, Iran has continued to vow to assert its influence over the Strait of Hormuz as the US has said it has made progress in increasing traffic in the arterial trade route. The Trump administration said it can maintain its blockade on Iran’s ports indefinitely.

On Thursday, a CENTCOM spokesperson told Al Jazeera that the military had facilitated the passage of 1,300 ships through the waterway.

The spokesperson confirmed the USS Lincoln was en route to the US.

Trump and his top Pentagon officials have largely dismissed reports of conditions on board the vessel as misleading, saying those on board were experiencing wartime austerity.

Meanwhile, there has been no indication that talks between the US and Iran would resume any time soon, after an earlier Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) designed to find a more lasting end to the war expired on Monday.

On Thursday, Trump announced what he described as a “crushing economic operation” against Iran, which has long been targeted by US and Western sanctions.

He said that any country that does business with Iran will face “tremendous economic consequences”, in what he called “economic D-Day”.

Iran’s Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, called the announcement a distraction, saying the approach will “bring further defeat” to the US. %!s()

You might be forgiven for glancing at this year's GCSE results and thinking not much has changed.

And sure, if you're just looking at the pass rate across England, Wales and Northern Ireland, that would be more or less correct.

But, when you dig into the detail, you'll find a more complicated picture, where some issues from last year have become even more stark.

You'll see the grades of students resitting their English and maths GCSEs in England are dragging down the overall results in those subjects - all part of a system the government itself says is "demoralising" and needs fixing.

You'll see that boys' and girls' grades are looking more similar - though that's more to do with girls slipping than boys improving.

And you'll see that, despite the government's pledges to "tackle entrenched inequality", the regional divide in England has actually grown, and remains stubbornly higher than it was before Covid.

Here are five key things you need to know.

1. GCSE passes are similar to last year

The GCSE pass rate has remained stable – with 67.3% of all grades across England, Wales and Northern Ireland at 4/C and above.

That's only very slightly down from 67.4% last year.

What we're seeing is a picture of consistency, broadly, after years of flux in 2020 and 2021 when exams were cancelled because of the Covid pandemic and results were based on teachers' assessments.

In fact, today's pass rate is exactly the same as it was in 2019.

You can see how results were in your local area using the look-up tool below.

Within each nation, too, the proportion of GCSEs marked at 4/C hasn't changed much:

• 67% in England, down from 67.1% in 2025

• 62.3% in Wales, down from 62.5%

• 83.6% in Northern Ireland, up from 83.5%

And the proportion of top grades across all three nations – marked at 7/A or above - has also remained steady, rising very slightly from 21.9% last year to 22% this year.

2. Resit numbers rise again

Nearly a quarter of maths and English GCSEs were taken by people aged 17 and older this year.

They made up 24.3% of maths and English language grades in England – compared to 23.4% last year.

Some of those older candidates will be mature students sitting exams for the first time, but most will be young people resitting papers.

In England, pupils who don't get at least grade 4s in their maths and English GCSEs have to continue studying for them alongside their next course - their A-levels or their T-level, for example.

Resitting is not a requirement, according to the Department for Education (DfE), but colleges generally enter students into exams when they think they're ready.

That matters for two reasons.

First, behind the statistics are young people being entered time and time again into exams they are unlikely to pass.

Just 19.8% of English language entries and 15.3% of maths entries from people aged 17 and over in England were marked at grade 4 or higher. Both pass rates have slipped since last year.

The second reason it matters is that those resit pass rates are much lower than they are for 16-year-olds sitting English language and maths for the first time, so overall grades for all ages are brought down by the resits as a result.

The exam board Cambridge OCR said earlier on Thursday that "the number of resit entries is still going in the wrong direction". The Association of School and College Leaders said "force-feeding [young people] a relentless diet of GCSE English and maths in post-16 education is simply not working".

The DfE said "future years won't face this demoralising cycle" because of a new "stepping stone" qualification it plans to introduce for those who don't pass GCSEs from 2028.

That new qualification would be Level 1, a rung lower than GCSEs.

The plan has been broadly welcomed, but there are calls for students to be able to take it before they get to the point of sitting GCSEs, rather than waiting until sitting them.

3. Girls' grades slip again

Girls continue to outperform boys, but the gap between boys' and girls' pass rates across all three nations has narrowed again to its lowest on record.

It's a gap of 5.8 percentage points this year, down from 6.2 last year and 9.5 in 2017, when it was at its widest this century.

Earlier, the DfE counted this among the "positive signs of improvement" in this year's results.

However, the gap has narrowed because girls' grades have dropped, while boys' results have risen very slightly.

It's a topic we looked at in depth last year, when analysis from the Education Policy Institute suggested that girls' performance has been "declining in absolute terms" since the Covid pandemic.

It linked this to "worrying trends around girls' wellbeing" such as worsening mental health and social media use.

4. Regional gap widens in England

The gap between the highest- and lowest-performing regions in England has widened.

London has the highest pass rate (71.7%) and the West Midlands again has the lowest (62.4%).

That's a 9.3 percentage point gap, up from 8.7 last year.

It also remains wider than it was at any point in the decade leading up to the Covid pandemic.

The DfE said it was "committed to [tackling] entrenched inequality" through targeted support in areas with weaker performance.

It has also said it wants to give local leaders more influence over teenagers' education. Prime Minister Andy Burnham announced last month that he wanted to ensure teenagers had technical routes into careers tailored around local industries.

5. Computing entries fall with 'the emergence of AI'

This year there's been another sharp increase in the number of people taking statistics at GCSE.

And there's been a further decline in the number of entries for French, which was overtaken in popularity by Spanish for the first time last year.

The biggest drop in subject entries, though, is in computing, with a 7.1% fall to 85,000 entries.

Myles McGinley, managing director of Cambridge OCR exam board, said computing had fallen from "a historic high" and still "remains a very popular GCSE", but speculated that "the emergence of AI could be leading to students thinking they don't need to learn how to code".

He noted that "vibe coding" – making an app or website using AI rather than by coding it manually – was "all the rage".

But he added: "I think potentially computer science is more important than ever in the age of AI.

"I think AI won't be able to replace a solid understanding of how software works, how technology can solve real-world problems, and how it can create a good user experience for example."

Additional reporting by Phil Leake, Libby Rogers, Rob England, Isobel Cottam and Jess Carr

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Are you happy with your exam results? Have you decided what to do next? Do you have any questions? %!s()

Sadly, however, not every car depreciates nearly as quickly as you'd hope. Sometimes there's just more demand for a car you thought would be a pretty niche product. Sometimes they depreciate like normal but start out so expensive, you just can't afford one yet. Heck, sometimes you just don't think they're worth what people are currently paying. Regardless of the reason, on Tuesday we asked you which cars you think need to depreciate faster. Let's take a look at some of the most popular responses.

Lexus LC 500

Lexus

Easy. The Lexus LC500. It's arguably the most beautiful car on the road. Lexus reliability in a sports car. They aren't depreciating. They aren't going up in value either. The used prices seem to just sit around the MSRP of $100k or thereabouts, unless there's an issue or unusually high miles.

Suggested by: Papa Chris

Ford Maverick

Ford

Ford Maverick, since they were launched, I feel like the used market for them is like buying a used Toyota Tacoma, without the long-term reliability (turbo Tacoma's of recent years excluded).

Suggested by: J-wagon

BMW Z4

BMW

2025/26 BMW Z4 M40i Handschalter. Last of the ICE 6MT Roadster and before German driving machines became "Cutting Edge" computers on wheels.

Suggested by: StaninOrlando

Hyundai Ioniq 6

Hyundai

The ioniq 6 for largely the same reason. Mind you I am broke and if I am going electric, I am buying a sedan.

Suggested by: Garlos Chosn (gib latest tab)

Cadillac CTS-V

Cadillac

3rd gen CTS-V's. Its the only car im remotely interested in trading my SS for and the friggen things are still in the high 70's. I figured since they are auto only that might help. No dice.

Suggested by: NEB376

Ford Mustang Mach-E

Ford

Ford Mustang Mach-e. I'd love to pick up a long-range version for $20k or under.

Suggested by: BuddyS

Nissan Leaf

Joel-t/Getty Images

Nissan Leaf. A subcompact-ish EV would be perfect for me who only commutes 15 minutes from home and gets free charging at work. But I looked at one at a local dealership and can't justify the current price tag. Drop the price by $10k or so and then I'll consider it.

Suggested by: Giantsgiants

Volvo V60 T8 Polestar

Volvo

Volvo V60 T8 Polestar

Suggested by: Matthew Luedke

Ford Mustang Dark Horse

Ford

I wouldn't mind picking up a Mustang Dark Horse lightly used. They're still sitting at over $60K...Would be nice if last generation Vipers would go down as well 😒

Suggested by: Agon Targeryan

Tesla Cybertruck

Gary Hershorn/Getty Images

Cybertruck. Yes, I know its value is plummeting rapidly as is, but I still feel like it could be losing value even faster.

Suggested by: Wretched_Genius %!s()