BERLIN (AP) — Bayer Leverkusen has snapped up highly rated teenager Ibrahim Maza from second-division club Hertha Berlin in its first signing for next season.
The 19-year-old Maza, an attacking midfielder, signed a contract through June 2030, the 2024 Bundesliga champion said on Thursday.
Kicker magazine reported the clubs agreed on a transfer fee of around 12 million euros ($13.6 million) for the player.
It promises to be the start of a busy summer at Leverkusen with key players including Jonathan Tan set to leave, uncertainty over the future of star Florian Wirtz, and coach Xabi Alonso expected to leave amid links to former club Real Madrid.
Former Barcelona coach Xavi and Erik ten Hag, who was previously in charge of Manchester United, are reportedly candidates to succeed Alonso, who led unbeaten Leverkusen to a league and cup double last season.
The Berlin-born Maza became Hertha’s most promising youth player after joining the capital club’s junior ranks from local club Reinickendorfer Füchse in 2016.
Hertha was relegated from the Bundesliga in 2023 — Maza scored in the club’s last game in the division — and he became one of the team’s key attacking threats in the second division where the 1.8-meter right-footed player scored five goals and set up five more this season.
“Maza is currently one of the most interesting young attacking players,” Leverkusen sporting director Simon Rolfes said. “Ibrahim suits us and our style of football. He has outstanding technical skills, can dribble past defenders, and he has an eye for his teammates, which he knows how to use brilliantly.”
Maza played for Germany Under-18s through Under-20s before opting to represent Algeria. He turned down previous offers to leave Hertha and extended his contract with the club in August last year to 2027, but Hertha’s financial difficulties meant he was bound to leave sooner rather than later.
“As a Berliner, the greatest thing for me was to become a professional player at Hertha BSC and to be able to wear the (Hertha) flag on my chest in Olympiastadion,” Maza said in a Hertha statement. “I’m grateful now that the club is giving me the chance to take the next step at the highest level in Leverkusen.”
Hertha said it will give Maza “a fitting farewell” before he leaves. There are still three rounds of the second division remaining and Hertha has two games at home.
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
Hertha’s Ibrahim Maza, centre, shoots at the goal of Cologne goalkeeper Marvin Schwäbe during the Bundesliga 2 soccer match between FC Koln and Hertha BSC, at the RheinEnergieStadion in Cologne, Germany, Saturday April 5, 2025. (Marius Becker/dpa via AP)
BEND, Ore. (AP) — Dozens of homeless people who have been living in a national forest in central Oregon for years were being evicted Thursday by the U.S. Forest Service, as it closed the area for a wildfire prevention project that will involve removing smaller trees, clearing debris and setting controlled burns over thousands of acres.
The project has been on the books for years, and the decision to remove the encampment in the Deschutes National Forest comes two months after the Trump administration issued an executive order directing federal agencies to increase timber production and forest management projects aimed at reducing wildfire risk. It wasn’t immediately clear if the evictions were a result of that order, but homeless advocates seized on the timing on Thursday, as U.S. Forest Service officers blocked the access road.
“The fact that they are doing this with such vigor shortly after they announced that the forests would be opened up for logging I don’t think is a coincidence, » said Jesse Rabinowitz, spokesperson for the National Homelessness Law Center.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the U.S. Forest Service, and the service’s Pacific Northwest Region did not immediately respond to emailed requests for comment.
“The closure does not target any specific user group and will restrict all access, including day use and overnight camping, while crews operate heavy machinery, conduct prescribed burns, and clean up hazardous materials,” Deschutes National Forest spokesperson Kaitlyn Webb said in an email. “It’s not safe for the public to be in the area while heavy machinery is operating, trees are being felled, mowing operations are active, and prescribed burning is occurring.”
Campers who had set up trailers, recreational vehicles and tents amidst the ponderosa pines in the Deschutes National Forest scrambled in the darkness Wednesday night to pack up and get their engines working again. Authorities closed the two-lane road in the early hours of Thursday morning, and it wasn’t immediately clear how many people were left in the forest by the afternoon, though some were unable to leave.
The U.S. Forest Service has been working for years on plans to close part of the Deschutes National Forest near Bend for forest restoration and wildfire mitigation. But the number of people living in that part of the forest has grown, with many losing homes during the coronavirus pandemic due to job losses and high housing costs, Rabinowitz said.
President Donald Trump’s administration has acted to roll back environmental safeguards around future logging projects on more than half of U.S. national forests, under an emergency designation that cites dangers from wildfires.
Whether the administration’s move will boost lumber supplies as Trump envisioned in an executive order he signed in March remains to be seen. Former President Joe Biden’s administration also sought more logging in public forests to combat fires, which have become more intense amid drier and hotter conditions linked to climate change, yet U.S. Forest Service timber sales stayed relatively flat under his tenure.
The Cabin Butte Vegetation Management Project, a wildfire mitigation treatment on some 30,000 acres (12,000 hectares), is prompting the closures in the Deschutes National Forest.
The goal of the work is to reduce wildfire risk and restore damaged habitats where development encroaches on natural areas near Bend, Deschutes National Forest officials said in a statement. Recreation sites and trails in that area will be closed through April next year.
Multiple U.S. Forest Service officials and vehicles were stationed at the Deschutes National Forest road closure on Thursday. A sign on the metal gate blocking the road said the temporary emergency closure will last at least one year.
Violators could face up six months in jail, fines up to $5,000, or both.
On Wednesday night, Mandy Bryant, who said she had lived in the encampment for about three years, was cleaning up her site and trying to get a trailer to start so she could move it.
“You could feel the heaviness in the air and just the stress and depression that people are feeling,” she told The Associated Press. “We’re up there on the list of groups of people that society doesn’t really care for.”
Four people living in the encampment including Bryant, along with two homeless advocates, filed for a restraining order to stop the closure earlier this month. The claim argued it would cause irreparable harm to more than 100 people who were living there, many of whom have disabilities.
The government responded in court filings that U.S. Forest Service staff in January began notifying homeless people living in the area of the upcoming closure. Original plans for the project were published in 2019 and were authorized by the U.S. Forest Service in 2023, the court filings said.
U.S. District Court Judge Michael McShane denied the restraining order on Tuesday and issued a written opinion on Thursday.
“The public’s significant interest in restoring natural habitats, preventing catastrophic wildfires, and preserving the overall health of Deschutes National Forest is not outweighed by the interest of 150 or so individuals in residing on this particular plot of land, » he wrote in his ruling.
Webb, a Deschutes National Forest spokesperson, told The Oregonian/OregonLive that the government’s goal is “voluntary compliance,” but Forest Service officers and staff will patrol and “enforce the closure and ensure public safety.”
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Rush reported from Portland, Oregon.
A trucking and logging vehicle, at left, drives past trailers lining China Hat Road as leaves an area that was closed off in Deschutes National Forest, Thursday, May 1, 2025 near Bend, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
Jessica Gamble, who started the nonprofit Home More Network in 2022, right, looks on after reading text messages she received when a road to a homeless encampment in Deschutes National Forest was closed on Thursday, May 1, 2025, near Bend, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
A person talks to a U.S. Forest Service official about getting through a road barrier to collect their belongings at a homeless encampment in Deschutes National Forest, Thursday, May 1, 2025, near Bend, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
Nick Campbell vapes at a homeless encampment in Deschutes National Forest Wednesday, April 30, 2025 near Bend, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
A flashlight from Mandy Bryant’s shines on chairs propped up by trees at a homeless encampment in Deschutes National Forest Wednesday, April 30, 2025 near Bend, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
A tiara rests on a seat as a woman writes in a journal at a homeless encampment in Deschutes National Forest Wednesday, April 30, 2025 near Bend, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
A string of lights hangs on a tree above a memorial at a homeless encampment in Deschutes National Forest Wednesday, April 30, 2025 near Bend, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
Greg Bishop works to get an RV to start at a homeless encampment in Deschutes National Forest Wednesday, April 30, 2025 near Bend, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
Mike Shelton works to attach a hitch to a vehicle as he loads up his belongings at a homeless encampment in Deschutes National Forest Wednesday, April 30, 2025 near Bend, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
Nick Campbell looks up while talking to a volunteer at a homeless encampment in Deschutes National Forest Wednesday, April 30, 2025 near Bend, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
Greg Bishop works to get an RV to start at a homeless encampment in Deschutes National Forest, Wednesday, April 30, 2025 near Bend, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
Trailers and RVs are seen at a homeless encampment in Deschutes National Forest, Wednesday, April 30, 2025, near Bend, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
A woman looks up from writing in a notebook with the words « to be a princess » seen near the top of the page and a tiara next to her inside a trailer as her father works to get it to start, at a homeless encampment in Deschutes National Forest, Wednesday, April 30, 2025 near Bend, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
Chris Daggett works to get an RV to start so that it can be moved at a homeless encampment in Deschutes National Forest Wednesday, April 30, 2025 near Bend, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
Mandy Bryant holds her dog as she talks with a neighbor at a homeless encampment in Deschutes National Forest Wednesday, April 30, 2025 near Bend, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
Mike Shelton works to attach a hitch to a vehicle as he loads up his belongings at a homeless encampment in Deschutes National Forest Wednesday, April 30, 2025 near Bend, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
Mandy Bryant walks to help Mike Shelton with his trailer as they load up their belongings at a homeless encampment in Deschutes National Forest, Wednesday, April 30, 2025, near Bend, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
A person walks to a tent at a homeless encampment in Deschutes National Forest, Wednesday, April 30, 2025, near Bend, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
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