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BERLIN: Bayern Munich swept RB Leipzig aside 5-1 on Friday to extend their lead at the top of the Bundesliga on a somber night in Germany following a deadly car attack at a Christmas market in the eastern city of Magdeburg.

Bayern are now seven points clear of second place Bayer Leverkusen, who have the chance to close the gap back to four points when they host Freiburg in Saturday’s late game.

However, there was little mood for celebration after at least two people were killed and more than 60 injured when a vehicle barrelled through a crowd of revellers in Magdeburg at high speed, leaving a trail of bloody carnage.

“It’s almost impossible to talk about football, the people of Magdeburg are in our thoughts tonight,” said Bayern coach Vincent Kompany in a press conference reduced to a short statement.

“We won tonight, but I wish victories for peace next year.”

The small ceremony that the Munich club traditionally offers its supporters before Christmas was cut short, reduced to a rendition of “Stille Nacht” (“Silent Night“), due to the events in Magdeburg.

A minute’s silence was also observed in the Allianz Arena.

On the pitch, Jamal Musiala scored after just 30 seconds for Bayern.

Musiala steered the ball in from close range from Michael Olize’s cross after a sublime flick by Harry Kane, returning from an injury lay-off, had opened the door for Olize.

But Bayern’s lead lasted barely a minute. Lois Openda’s stepover left Kim Min-jae in his wake and the Belgian sent a perfect low cross for Benjamin Sesko to score with a first-time finish.

Both teams took a breather after an intense opening, but it wasn’t long before Bayern were back in front.

Konrad Laimer exchanged passed with the dangerous Olize, and the Austrian volleyed expertly past Peter Gulacsi in the Leipzig goal.

Bayern added a third courtesy of a Joshua Kimmich piledriver in the 36th minute. The midfielder, captaining the side in the absence of the injured Manuel Neuer, found some space 25 yards out and let fly with an unstoppable drive.

Leipzig, who have won twice their last three visits to the Allianz Arena, steadied the ship a little after the break but Bayern were in no mood to compromise and continued to produce some of their best football of the season.

They extended their lead in the 75th minute through Leroy Sane, who just managed to stay on side as he collected Alphonso Davies’ through pass, rolling the ball into the bottom corner.

Bayern were hungry for more though. Kimmich, a thorn in Leipzig’s side all night, found space on the right and whipped a cross in for Davies, who connected to score a rare headed goal and bring up Bayern’s fifth of the night.

Kane joined Kompany in offering his sympathy to the victims of the Magdeburg attack.

“Sometimes, there is a bigger picture than football. All the team and FC Bayern presents its condoleances to anyone who is affected by this,” said the England star.

TORONTO, Canada: Scientists have long known that light can sometimes appear to exit a material before entering it — an effect dismissed as an illusion caused by how waves are distorted by matter.
Now, researchers at the University of Toronto, through innovative quantum experiments, say they have demonstrated that “negative time” isn’t just a theoretical idea — it exists in a tangible, physical sense, deserving closer scrutiny.
The findings, yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, have attracted both global attention and skepticism.
The researchers emphasize that these perplexing results highlight a peculiar quirk of quantum mechanics rather than a radical shift in our understanding of time.
“This is tough stuff, even for us to talk about with other physicists. We get misunderstood all the time,” said Aephraim Steinberg, a University of Toronto professor specializing in experimental quantum physics.
While the term “negative time” might sound like a concept lifted from science fiction, Steinberg defends its use, hoping it will spark deeper discussions about the mysteries of quantum physics.

Years ago, the team began exploring interactions between light and matter.
When light particles, or photons, pass through atoms, some are absorbed by the atoms and later re-emitted. This interaction changes the atoms, temporarily putting them in a higher-energy or “excited” state before they return to normal.
In research led by Daniela Angulo, the team set out to measure how long these atoms stayed in their excited state. “That time turned out to be negative,” Steinberg explained — meaning a duration less than zero.
To visualize this concept, imagine cars entering a tunnel: before the experiment, physicists recognized that while the average entry time for a thousand cars might be, for example, noon, the first cars could exit a little sooner, say 11:59 am. This result was previously dismissed as meaningless.
What Angulo and colleagues demonstrated was akin to measuring carbon monoxide levels in the tunnel after the first few cars emerged and finding that the readings had a minus sign in front of them.

The experiments, conducted in a cluttered basement laboratory bristling with wires and aluminum-wrapped devices, took over two years to optimize. The lasers used had to be carefully calibrated to avoid distorting the results.
Still, Steinberg and Angulo are quick to clarify: no one is claiming time travel is a possibility. “We don’t want to say anything traveled backward in time,” Steinberg said. “That’s a misinterpretation.”
The explanation lies in quantum mechanics, where particles like photons behave in fuzzy, probabilistic ways rather than following strict rules.
Instead of adhering to a fixed timeline for absorption and re-emission, these interactions occur across a spectrum of possible durations — some of which defy everyday intuition.
Critically, the researchers say, this doesn’t violate Einstein’s theory of special relativity, which dictates that nothing can travel faster than light. These photons carried no information, sidestepping any cosmic speed limits.

The concept of “negative time” has drawn both fascination and skepticism, particularly from prominent voices in the scientific community.
German theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder, for one, criticized the work in a YouTube video viewed by over 250,000 people, noting, “The negative time in this experiment has nothing to do with the passage of time — it’s just a way to describe how photons travel through a medium and how their phases shift.”
Angulo and Steinberg pushed back, arguing that their research addresses crucial gaps in understanding why light doesn’t always travel at a constant speed.
Steinberg acknowledged the controversy surrounding their paper’s provocative headline but pointed out that no serious scientist has challenged the experimental results.
“We’ve made our choice about what we think is a fruitful way to describe the results,” he said, adding that while practical applications remain elusive, the findings open new avenues for exploring quantum phenomena.
“I’ll be honest, I don’t currently have a path from what we’ve been looking at toward applications,” he admitted. “We’re going to keep thinking about it, but I don’t want to get people’s hopes up.”