WhatsApp is taking significant steps to enhance personal expression and real-time communication as it rolls out a refreshed version of its original “About” feature alongside creative upgrades to Status. Together, these updates demonstrate the company’s strategy to increase user engagement, encourage frequent sharing, and maintain a competitive edge in an increasingly crowded messaging market.

With billions of users relying on the platform daily, WhatsApp is sharpening its focus on lightweight, expressive, and visually rich communication formats.

WhatsApp has reintroduced About, the very first feature it ever offered, with improved usability and visibility. For long-time users, About predates the app’s core private messaging tools and was originally designed to let people quickly share what they were doing at the moment, the information on the WhatsApp blog revealed.

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The updated About feature was built to reflect the fast pace of modern digital life. For moments when availability shifts from one minute to the next, users can signal why they are unavailable, or what they do want to discuss, through a short phrase paired with an emoji. To increase visibility, About now appears at the top of one-on-one chats and on user profiles, while contacts can reply to an About directly by tapping it within a conversation.

About also includes customisable timers. By default, it disappears after one day, but users can set shorter or longer durations under Settings in the “Set About” menu. Privacy remains central: individuals can choose whether About is visible only to contacts or to a broader audience.

The refreshed About feature is rolling out to all mobile users starting this week.

Expanding creative expression on status

Alongside the About refresh, WhatsApp introduced new tools to enhance how users shared content through Status, the platform’s private, ephemeral update format. In May 2025, Status provided a space where people could keep close contacts informed about daily moments or major life events.

The updates expanded creative possibilities. With the new Layout option, users could combine up to six images into a collage and customize its appearance using built-in editing tools. The More with Music feature allowed individuals to create Status posts centered entirely on a particular song or add a music sticker to set a specific mood.

WhatsApp also added Photo Stickers, enabling users to turn any photo into a sticker that could be resized and reshaped for more personalized expression. Another addition, Add Yours, invited user participation by allowing people to post a picture with a prompt; contacts could respond and share their own replies to their Status.

According to the company at the time, these tools were designed to help users express themselves more creatively while strengthening communication within private circles. The features began rolling out shortly afterward and were expected to reach all users over the coming months.

An Indian-made HAL Tejas fighter jet crashed during a demonstration at the Dubai Airshow on 21 November 2025, around 2:10 p.m. local time, the organisers confirmed. The incident occurred at Al Maktoum International Airport (Dubai World Central) during a scheduled aerobatic display.

The pilot of the aircraft has been declared fatally injured, according to the Indian Air Force. A court of inquiry has been ordered to investigate the cause of the crash.

Emergency services and firefighters responded immediately to the crash site, where a plume of black smoke was seen rising over the airport. The demo flight programme was temporarily suspended as rescue operations were underway.

While no other injuries have been confirmed at this stage, the full circumstances of the incident—including whether the pilot ejected and what malfunction may have occurred—are still under investigation.

The Dubai Airshow, one of the region’s largest aerospace events, is being closely watched by the global defence and aviation industry as it reviews the incident.

Incident Timeline

• ~ 1:30 p.m. local time: The aerobatic display begins, including performances by other teams such as the Surya Kiran, drawing crowds near Al Maktoum International Airport.

• ~ 2:10 p.m.: The Tejas jet appears for its scheduled performance in the lineup.

• ~ 2:13 p.m.: The aircraft initiates a steep climb or aerobatic manoeuvre. It then appears to lose altitude rapidly and plunges toward ground. Eyewitnesses report a black plume of smoke.

• ~ 2:15 p.m.: Emergency and firefighting teams arrive at the crash site; rescue operations begin immediately. The pilot’s death is later confirmed.

• Shortly after: The air show organisers pause aerial displays; spectators are directed back to exhibition areas for safety.

• Later: The Indian Air Force confirms the pilot sustained fatal injuries and announces a court of inquiry to determine the cause of the crash.

The WE Convention 2025, held on November 1–2 at Atlantis The Royal, became a rare convergence of two global voices who have shaped culture, business, fashion, publishing, and the modern narrative of women’s independence. Mila Semeshkina, the founder and president of the WE Convention and the WE Council, a leading global platform for women’s empowerment and leadership development, curated the event to highlight these transformative stories. Anna Wintour, global editorial director of Vogue and chief content officer of Condé Nast, and Candace Bushnell, the international best-selling author whose writing redefined women’s lives for a generation, offered audiences a candid look at leadership, creativity, ambition, and the evolving expectations placed on women today.

What emerged from these conversations, “Anna Wintour: Power, Mystery, and the Legacy of a Fashion Icon” and “Candace Bushnell & Carrie Bradshaw: Breaking Taboos and Redefining Women’s Lives”, was a sweeping reflection on work, purpose, culture, and the power of storytelling. It became clear that, whether in a newsroom or a writer’s room, success is forged through discipline, perspective, humor, and a deeply held belief that voices, especially women’s voices, deserve amplification, even when industry structures say otherwise.

A creative childhood and the making of a leader

Anna Wintour began her conversation by reflecting on her early surroundings in the UK, where creativity and influence shaped her worldview long before she became one of fashion’s most recognisable leaders. She recalled growing up “in a house full of creative people,” where her father worked as a well-connected editor. Writers, politicians, and artists filled the rooms of her childhood home, embedding in her the conviction that journalism was her destiny.

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“I think the most important thing in any career is to keep learning as you go, and always listen and stay aware of the people around you,” she said. That belief, learned early, became the leadership principle she still carries. For Wintour, adaptability, not perfection, is the foundation of influence.

She emphasised that leadership must be forward-moving rather than reactive.

“I believe it’s more important to be a solution-oriented leader than someone constantly focused on damage control,” she explained. The simplicity of honest communication, of making one’s opinions known with clarity, remains central to her decision-making. She repeated the philosophy passed down by her father: a leader should only hire people they look forward to seeing walk into their office. “If not, don’t take the job,” she said. “Leadership should be welcoming.”

Breaking into a male-dominated newsroom

Wintour did not shy away from acknowledging the barriers of her early career. Journalism in London, she noted, “was completely dominated by men.” Women were limited to “cooking, interior decorating, or other female-oriented positions.” Yet the newsroom’s rapid energy drew her in, the constant churn of editions, from morning to late-night, created the pace she wanted.

Her father’s work as an editor also meant that news never waited. She recounted a childhood moment when her family cut a holiday short because Marilyn Monroe had died, and the story had to be covered. “There was no internet back then, just phones,” she recalled. From that, she learned a simple truth: “A leader must always be actively involved. An absent leader is not a true leader.”

The pandemic stress test

Wintour described the COVID period as the most challenging moment of her career. Remote work, she said, drained the creativity that thrives when teams share space, ideas, and energy. She highlighted how, during the Paris collections, in-person conversation often sparked some of the most dynamic editorial decisions.

“That season was especially challenging, with 13 or 14 new creative directors in Paris,” she said. Navigating that shift remotely, she emphasized, underscored the irreplaceable value of human exchange.

Yet COVID also prompted innovation. Wintour spoke of mentoring young designers such as Jacqueline Lazarau, Tom Brown, and Rachel Scott, and of transforming the Cash Fund into “Common Right” to support designers in need. “Your greatest strength is most evident in difficult times,” she noted.

Creativity, business, and the power of the right team

A key theme throughout her session was balance, specifically, how leaders can create harmony between artistry and business. Wintour stressed that self-awareness is critical. “The key is recognising your own strengths and surrounding yourself with talented people,” she explained.

She warned against building teams of people who simply agree with everything a leader says. “That’s boring and unproductive,” she said. Instead, she advocated for creatives who challenge assumptions and widen perspectives.

She credited global collaboration for strengthening Vogue’s editorial voice.

With teams across France, Spain, Dubai, and beyond, she emphasised that listening to regional expertise drives success. “What works in Dubai may not work in New York.”

Women, barriers, and the path forward

Asked whether barriers still exist for women, Wintour’s response was immediate: “Of course they do, but we must keep pushing.” She praised the women leaders she met in Dubai, calling them “remarkable” for how they challenge misconceptions.

She also spoke of her personal influences. Hillary Clinton serves as a role model and friend, but her earliest mentor was Katharine Graham of The Washington Post. Graham, she said, demonstrated how values and courage can shape an organisation’s identity, even when the world isn’t prepared to see a woman lead.

Other life lessons came from unexpected places. Wintour described an interaction at the Metropolitan Museum of Art about an artist whose work sparked conversation because of a guard’s challenge. The moment reinforced her belief that “everyone has insights to offer, and you never know where inspiration may come from.”

Passion, energy, and the everyday pursuit of purpose

When asked how she sustains energy in such a demanding role, Wintour answered simply: she loves what she does. “I don’t believe in all-nighters, I believe in balance,” she said. The joy, she explained, comes from “working with inspiring people.”

Wintour also highlighted Dubai’s rising influence. She praised the clarity and discipline of women leaders in the region and the city’s global reputation as a hub of creativity and business.

Her admiration for visionary designers also took center stage. She pointed to Sarah Burton as her favorite designer and reiterated that great creators are defined by conviction. True designers, she said, are not distracted by others, “they don’t look to the right or to the left.”

She spoke at length about Giorgio Armani’s legacy, describing a Milan exhibition that captured his evolution from the 1970s onward. His clarity of vision, his understanding of celebrity culture, and his ability to merge fashion with art, architecture, literature, and history made him transformative.

Her reflections expanded into stories of Paris dinners, where conversations with creative minds touched on everything from architecture to books to personal lives. In these exchanges, she found proof that fashion never exists in isolation. “He was a master storyteller,” she said, recalling Chanel shows set in supermarkets, on beaches, or next to rockets. Style became spectacle, but always driven by belief and spirit.

Risk, technology, and reinvention

Wintour made clear that great creators thrive because they take risks. “What distinguishes truly creative people from those who are merely competent is the willingness to take risks, try new things, and learn from mistakes,” she said. In a world moving faster than ever, especially with digital transformation, leaders must stay open and curious.

“When I started, we were focused on print, producing 12 issues a year,” she explained. “Now, we think about social media, digital content, video, events, and global audiences.” Reinvention, she suggested, is non-negotiable.

Leading a global brand with local vision

With 28 editions of Vogue, each rooted in distinct cultures, Wintour underscored the importance of listening to local leadership. “They often know their markets better than you do,” she said. Leadership, therefore, means respecting regional knowledge while mentoring teams to uphold Vogue’s standards.

Global leadership, she said, is a balance of patience, communication, and understanding. It also requires constant observation, of social media, of videos, of the streets themselves, because culture shifts quickly, and relevance demands awareness.

Candace Bushnell: A different lens on power and women’s lives

If Wintour’s conversation explored leadership and creativity from the executive and editorial vantage point, Candace Bushnell’s session offered a deeply personal view of ambition, independence, and cultural influence.

Bushnell opened with a nod to the characters who became cultural icons: Samantha, Charlotte, Miranda, and Carrie. “For many years, through their stories, you didn’t just show us women’s lives; you redefined what success and independence mean,” she said.

Her interviewer asked how it all began. Contrary to common belief, The New York Observer was not her starting point. “I started writing professionally when I was 19,” she said, adding that her entire career stemmed from an epiphany at age eight. Looking up from a book in school, she simply knew she would be a writer.

Bushnell’s childhood mirrored Wintour’s in one way, the influence of a brilliant father. Her father invented the fuel cell used in the first space rockets and pushed her to “change the world.” His expectations became the lens through which she defined purpose. “Maybe I could win the Pulitzer Prize, that would show everybody,” she said of her childhood logic.

New York women and the birth of a cultural era

Bushnell recalled being captivated by the women of New York, “so interesting and so different.” Their lives inspired her early work and later shaped the characters who would eventually redefine television.

“Sex and the City,” she emphasised, was never simply about romance or fashion. “It is about money, power, status, and how those forces shape relationships.” She described herself as a “cultural anthropologist examining the human condition, the real human condition, not the fantasy.”

Her signature thread? Humor. “The thread running through all my work is that it’s funny,” she said, and that tone carried into the show that became a global phenomenon.

The evolution of independence and the new rules of life

Bushnell argued that society has changed so significantly that the idea of loneliness itself must be reevaluated. People live differently now because they can. “At one time, you really couldn’t be single; now you can,” she said. With choices comes freedom, and new social norms.

She illustrated this thought with a story of a plastic surgeon she once interviewed. When asked why so many people get plastic surgery, the surgeon replied, “Because they can.” Bushnell suggested that this logic explains much of modern behavior.

Her greatest personal lesson: you cannot rely on past achievements. “You can’t rest on your laurels,” she said. With 11 or 12 books written since Sex and the City, she remains committed to process and passion. “I just keep working.”

Women, success, and the next generation

Bushnell reflected on what success looks like now. Young women today, she said, are “so accomplished and bold.” They are not defined by the traditional pressures her generation faced. They pursue careers, independence, and friendships with confidence.

She cited Anna Wintour and Martha Stewart as examples of true success, admiring Stewart’s resilience after being jailed as a result of being “the first female billionaire.” Stewart’s instinct to teach fellow inmates, and to later wear a poncho crocheted by one of them, deeply struck Bushnell.

Her reflections underscored a shared theme with Wintour: women succeed not by conforming but by elevating others.

A closing reflection: Two voices, one story of influence

Across the WE Convention 2025, the conversations between Anna Wintour and Candace Bushnell formed a unified narrative about leadership, purpose, creativity, and the evolving identities of women in business and culture.

Both women built careers in industries where the rules were written without them in mind. Both responded not by bending to the system but by reshaping it.

Wintour’s leadership philosophy, rooted in communication, perspective, global awareness, and deliberate hiring, aligned seamlessly with Bushnell’s belief in independence, humor, and truth-telling.

Their stories remind us that business and culture are interconnected: leaders influence society, and storytellers influence leaders. In Dubai, their voices converged to deliver one message: success is a process, creativity is a discipline, and empowerment is not a trend but a legacy.

LEOS Developments has unveiled the full AI vision behind LEOS Royal, its Dhs5bn-plus master community under development in Dubai. Positioned to become the world’s first AI-powered green community, LEOS Royal aims to set a new global benchmark for how intelligent technology, sustainability, and modern living can be seamlessly integrated within a master-planned environment.

Located in Wadi Al Safa 5 in Dubailand, the project has been designed as a future-ready ecosystem aligned with Dubai’s 2040 Urban Master Plan. The community will feature more than 16,000 trees, botanical gardens, crystal-clear lagoons, and over 800 premium villas and townhouses, all connected through an AI-enabled infrastructure.

Every layer of the development is being engineered to think, analyse, and interact. From self-watering trees and autonomous street lighting to adaptive home environments that learn residents’ preferred temperature settings, LEOS Royal will operate as a responsive, living ecosystem powered entirely by artificial intelligence. The result is a next-generation “ChatGPT-style community” where homes, public spaces, and roads communicate and respond in real time.

Residents will benefit from smart running tracks that automatically count steps, landscaped areas with self-irrigating trees, and AI-enhanced safety and healthcare systems designed to deliver proactive support. Planned community-wide applications will include AI-enabled security networks and healthcare features, while daily household tasks will be supported by intelligent robotic systems for cleaning, care, and routine home management.

Rui Liu, founder and chairman of LEOS Developments, said: “Dubai has always been the place where the future takes shape, and LEOS Royal is our contribution to that legacy. We are building a community where intelligence touches everything, from trees that water themselves to homes that learn your rhythm. By blending AI, sustainability, and human connection, we are aligning with Dubai’s vision for a smarter, greener, and more connected tomorrow. LEOS Royal is the natural evolution of a city that refuses to stop innovating.”

LEOS is engaging global technology partners to expand the community’s AI capabilities and introduce new real-world applications that can be deployed at scale.

LEOS Royal’s intelligence is anchored by the 10 AI pillars of the future living community, a next-generation framework that brings together AI-enhanced wellness, adaptive nutrition, immersive entertainment, self-learning homes, smart mobility, and regenerative landscapes.

These pillars work in unison to power everything from personalised health environments and interactive community hubs to autonomous shuttles, AI-driven air mobility, and nature systems that mimic natural rainfall, all orchestrated by LEOS Core, the community’s central operating system that manages air, water, energy, predictive maintenance, and sustainable behaviour incentives in real time.

The developer continues to report strong momentum in the UAE’s real estate market, achieving multi-billion-dirham sales across its Dubai projects and maintaining a development pipeline exceeding Dhs15bn scheduled for delivery over the next 12 months. This performance reflects LEOS Developments’ confidence in Dubai’s long-term growth trajectory and its commitment to shaping the next generation of community living.

Sweden’s Saab AB SAABb.ST has made offers of its GlobalEye surveillance planes to Qatar and Saudi Arabia as part of a broader effort to drive demand for its military aircraft, the defence group’s CEO said on Thursday.

“We are campaigning, and we have given them offers,” Saab CEO Micael Johansson told Reuters in an interview.

Qatar and Saudi Arabia have both shown interest in the early-warning and control aircraft already ordered by the United Arab Emirates, he said. “We are looking forward to how the decision process will look like in these countries.”

Saab, which won orders from France earlier this year for the aircraft, has also pitched the platform based on a Bombardier BBDb.TO business jet to Canada, he said.

“There are a number of countries now looking at this capability and evaluating it,” he said of GlobalEye. “We are in different stages in different campaigns as we speak. Some campaigns we have provided offers.”

The Netherlands defense ministry last week announced that it along with several NATO allies had abandoned plans to buy six of the rival Boeing BA.N E-7 Wedgetail planes and was assessing other aircraft types.

“So now they are looking at whether they can maybe have another capability which we are of course proposing to them, the Global Eye,” Johansson said.

He was in Canada this week on the sidelines of a state visit to Ottawa by King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia of Sweden.

Johansson said Saab would be prepared to transfer technology and knowledge as part of setting up a facility with Canada’s Bombardier to install sensors and other tasks normally done in Sweden to modify the empty “green” jets for defense applications. Canada has not yet made a decision, he said.

Separately, Johansson said Saab was not actively campaigning to sell its Gripen fighter jet to Canada, but was rather giving Ottawa “information” to decide whether to buy the plane.

Canada has considered the Gripen to replace some Lockheed Martin LMT.N F-35 jets following a trade dispute with the United States.

Saab had offered to build the Gripen jets in Canada under license with Bombardier, creating a third production line to join those already operating in Sweden and Brazil.

Johansson said the Swedish and Brazilian production lines would both produce Gripen jets for Colombia as part of a recent $3.6bn deal with the South American country.