Coronation Street actress Nicola Thorp has revealed that she has been in tens of thousands of debt for 17 years after struggling to pay off her drama school fees

It’s perhaps every drama student’s dream to become an acclaimed actor in film or TV. But former Coronation Street star Nicola Thorp has revealed the downside to following her passion to work in the arts, as she racked up a £30,000 debt accrued from drama school fees.

The 36 year old ITV former soap star, who landed the role of Nicola Rubinstein, on the iconic TV show back in 2017, admitted to being in debt for 17 years. While on This Morning the actress claimed that students were missing their lectures as they were too tired from working to support their schooling.

Nicola studied at the Arts Educational School in London between 2007 and 2010. When asked by host Ben Shepherd about her school fees, she replied: “Yes I did. I had to pay. I am still in about £30,000 of debt now.” She added: “Even 17 years later.” Left in shock by her answer, Ben said: “And that’s the reality for a lot of these students. They don’t have a choice.”

Nicola played Nicola on the ITV soap for two years and left in 2019. Leaving the acting world behind, she has now become a journalist and presenter.

With regular spots on This Morning over the past six years, she has also co-hosted TalkTV’s Talk Today for four years, ending in 2024.

She has also delved into the world of reality TV as she appeared on Celebrity Hunted alongside her husband Nikesh Patel in 2023. The couple became parents to a baby girl the following year.

Speaking of her daughter she took to social media and wrote: “We are delighted to say that we recently welcomed our beautiful baby daughter into the world.” She added: “Everything they say about birth being a rollercoaster of emotions is true. We’re shattered and smitten and everything in between.”

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As Eileen Wang and her supporters tell it, the former Arcadia mayor was led astray by a man she trusted and loved.

After chasing her political ambitions in the San Gabriel Valley suburb, Wang, 58, won a City Council seat in 2022 with the help of a campaign advisor who was also her romantic partner. Two years later, he was charged by federal authorities with secretly working on behalf of the Chinese government.

Wang, a naturalized U.S. citizen, distanced herself from her ex and remained in office, becoming mayor earlier this year. The scandal had mostly quieted — until Monday, on the eve of President Trump’s planned trip to Beijing, when a plea deal was unsealed revealing Wang’s own murky role as an agent for China.

A man walks past an empty space where a photograph of former Mayor Eileen Wang was removed in the lobby of Arcadia City Hall.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

Now, Wang has become a national political talking point, with critics painting her as a calculating foreign agent who sought to infiltrate the American government and undermine democracy.

Katie Miller, wife of top Trump advisor Stephen Miller, blasted Wang on social media site X as a “spy.”

“This is pure China trying to influence U.S. politics and U.S. elections,” Katie Miller said on Fox News.

Back home, some of Wang’s former colleagues in local government say they repeatedly tried to raise alarms about her.

“There were red flags everywhere,” said Sharon Kwan, an Arcadia city council member and former mayor.

Wang admitted in her plea agreement to posting and editing web content at the request of the Chinese government — without disclosing her ties to U.S. authorities, as the law requires. She ran afoul of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA, a federal statute that experts said has seen ramped up enforcement over the last decade, particularly in cases involving China.

But those familiar with the law — and international espionage — said it does not appear that Wang was engaged in spycraft as it is commonly understood.

Dennis Wilder, a former senior U.S. intelligence official and professor at Georgetown University, said that, in the CIA, Wang would be referred to as “an agent of influence.”

“She’s not a spy in the Jason Bourne sense,” Wilder said, referring to the fictional American agent. “She’s not out there recruiting sources and that sort of thing. That’s not the role that they want for her. But they see this other role as extremely important.”

A man exits Arcadia City Hall on Tuesday.

(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)

A run for city council

Wang moved to the U.S. around 30 years ago, in part, she told The Times in 2024, because she wanted “freedom for speech, freedom [for] thinking.”

Her mother was a Chinese medicine and acupuncture doctor and her father was a physician in Sichuan province before working at USC, she said. Authorities have not detailed how she immigrated or her path to citizenship. She landed in Arcadia, she said, lured by what the school district in the affluent city of 54,000 could offer her two young boys.

She ran an after-school program and was involved in some community organizations, but said she did not move in political circles until shortly before her 2022 run for city council. She switched her party affiliation from Republican to Democrat, which, she said, spoke more to the needs of voters in her district, where many share her Chinese roots.

“I walk about 140 days,” she said of her campaign, adding that she hit every door in her district five times. “I never stop.”

Yaoning “Mike” Sun, Wang’s former fiance, managed her campaign.

Arcadia City Councilmember Sharon Kwan stands outside the front entrance of the San Gabriel Valley suburb’s City Hall. “This is not something where we can just dismiss and pretend nothing happened,” said Kwan regarding the case against ex-mayor Eileen Wang.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

Kwan, who was elected to the city council at the same time, recalled Sun as a constant presence at city meetings and events, “always with the camera.”

“Always recording, always promoting her,” Kwan said. “She was like a celebrity to him.”

Two years after Wang took office, in December 2024, federal authorities arrested Sun on suspicion of acting as an illegal agent of China.

Prosecutors accused Sun in a criminal complaint of working with another man to cultivate Wang as a political asset for the People’s Republic of China or PRC. Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles identified the other man as John Chen, describing him in a sentencing memorandum as “a high-level member of the PRC intelligence apparatus,” who had “met personally” with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Chen instructed Sun to submit reports on Wang, referred to throughout the complaint as “Individual 1,” to Chinese officials, including one the federal complaint said they referred to as the “Big Boss.” A draft of the report allegedly included a request for $80,000 to “support pro-PRC activities in the United States.” Sun was also told to tout Wang’s relationship with an unnamed U.S. congressperson, the complaint said.

Both men eventually pleaded guilty to working as unregistered agents of China, with Sun sentenced this year to four years in prison. Chen was sentenced to 20 months.

Wang spoke with Chen on the day she was elected and three more times over the next few months, according to the complaint in Sun’s case.

“You are doing a good job, I hope you can continue the good work, make Chinese people proud,” Chen told Wang, in a conversation on Jan. 23, 2023, according to the complaint in Sun’s case.

Chen and Sun also coordinated a trip to China in 2023 for Wang to meet with “leadership,” which would include stops in six different places, according to the complaint. It’s unclear whom Wang met with on the trip.

The fallout

After Sun’s arrest, Wang denied to several people that they had been engaged to marry. She said during a council meeting that their relationship ended in spring 2024.

Jolene Cadenbach, a pastor in Arcadia, said Wang confided in her that “she had been lied to” by Sun.

“I think he did a con job on her,” Cadenbach said.

The recent plea agreement gave the wrong impression about Wang, the pastor said.

“It made her sound like she was some kind of spy and it wasn’t like that at all,” she said. Wang was only following Sun’s orders, she added: “He told her to put up this site, she did it. She didn’t really investigate it.”

In a statement, Wang’s lawyers said she “apologizes and is sorry for the mistakes she has made in her personal life.” They said “she genuinely loves this city and is devoted to the people and the community within it,” but “her trust and love for apparently the wrong person… ultimately led her astray.”

Arcadia resident Sonia Martin sits on the porch of her home. Martin said she had long expressed concerns about the city’s former mayor, Eileen Wang.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

After Sun was charged in 2024, Sonia Martin and other Arcadia residents showed up at council meetings carrying protest signs. Martin said she expected Wang to be pushed out. Instead, she said, most council members appeared to unite behind Wang.

“They wanted to have this feeling of, like, everything’s great here. We’re all warm. Look at us, it’s kumbaya,” Martin said.

Kwan said she repeatedly tried to bring up the concerns of constituents to her fellow council members but was brushed off.

“Everybody was just so silent,” Kwan said. “This is not something where we can just dismiss and pretend nothing happened.”

The job of mayor rotates among Arcadia City Council members, and when it was Kwan’s turn last April, she warned during her swearing-in speech that constituents “must remain vigilant against influence of foreign governments, including efforts by the Chinese Communist Party, that may seek to shape local policy for the interests that do not align with our residents.”

Since Wang’s plea agreement became public, some have scoffed at the notion that Chinese spies would establish an outpost in Arcadia, or that the web posts she made before becoming mayor amounted to any sort of meaningful propaganda campaign.

But according to Sun’s plea agreement, local office was just the start. Prosecutors said Sun’s 2023 report for Chinese officials boasted that “during the 2022 U.S. midterm elections, I orchestrated and organized my team to win the election for city council.” He called Wang a “new political star.”

Wilder, the former U.S. intelligence official, said that sounded like a familiar strategy.

“Maybe she would end up in Congress some day or at the state government level. They invest in these folks hoping they move up the political food chain,” the Georgetown professor said. “That is part of the Chinese long game.”

‘San Gabriel Valley deserves better’

In her plea agreement, Wang admitted that from late 2020 through at least 2022, she worked with Sun to run a website called U.S. News Center that branded itself as a news source for Chinese Americans.

Wang and Sun “executed directives” from Chinese government officials, posting requested articles and reporting back with screenshots showing how many people viewed the stories, the agreement says.

Prosecutors also say Wang edited articles at the request of officials and shared information showing the reach of the posts.

“Thank you leader,” she wrote on Aug. 20, 2021, after being complimented for a post that was viewed more than 15,000 times, according to the plea agreement.

Wang never disclosed that the Chinese government had directed her to post the content, according to court documents.

That sort of low-level violation of the law is not supposed to trigger federal charges unless, according to a February 2025 memo by then-Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi to Justice Department prosecutors, the case involved “conduct similar to more traditional espionage.” The Trump administration has pursued other high-profile foreign agent cases recently, with prosecutors winning a conviction Wednesday of a man charged with running a covert police station in Manhattan and keeping tabs on political dissidents.

When news broke of the charges and plea deal involving Wang, current and former city officials said they were not surprised.

A wall of photographs of former Arcadia mayors hang inside Arcadia City Hall. Eileen Wang is shown second from left on the bottom row. Wang admitted in court filings this week to working as an unregistered agent for China.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

“The warning signs around Eileen Wang were public for more than a year before this plea, agreement, and too many people in positions of influence defended and supported her,” April Verlato, a former mayor of Arcadia, said in a statement. “Our electeds should have represented what was best for the community and held her accountable. The San Gabriel Valley deserves better.”

Paul Cheng, mayor pro tem of Arcadia, said the council didn’t move earlier to oust Wang because a majority of its members wanted to let the federal investigation run its course.

“The public always says, ‘Why didn’t you investigate her when her boyfriend was arrested? Why didn’t you do something?’” he said.

Pedestrians walk along a sidewalk next to Huntington Drive in downtown Arcadia on Wednesday.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

But, he emphasized, “council members are not federal investigators.”

“We are not supposed to get involved,” said Cheng, an attorney. “It would make the situation 10 times worse.”

Cheng spoke highly of Wang, painting her as a committed civil servant with a passion for veterans, first responders and diversifying the businesses on Baldwin Avenue, the city’s main corridor.

“She probably attended the most events compared to all of us,” he said. “People have tried getting me to say she’s a horrible person, but I can only say what I saw, which was I thought she did a good job on council.”

I’m haunted by the perfection of Roxy board shorts from the early aughts. As a teen surfer girl in El Porto, they were my holy grail. In those years, all the cool surf brands made cute surf clothing, but the emphasis was decidedly more on the aesthetic than the function, which was a bummer when it came to, you know, surfing. Roxy board shorts changed that, especially the particular style I’m thinking of: slightly longer to actually prevent thigh chafe from the board, they sat perfectly on my hips and stayed on with their Velcro and lace-up fly. Unlike when I tried to borrow from the boys section, the board shorts weren’t comically long or baggy or cut straight across the waist. These were made for girls who actually surfed. I bought them in every (very cute) color I could find and surfed them until I couldn’t any longer.

Sonia Kasparian, the original designer of Roxy’s board shorts back in the mid-’90s, smiles in our recent conversation when I recount my astonishment at their discovery. She’s grinning because of course they fit — that was the ethos behind her design. “I wanted [the board shorts] to be totally functional, exactly to the same standards that the men’s were, but designed for women. There was a completely different fit for women than men.” And true to Roxy’s style bona fides, the board shorts looked good enough to pair with a T-shirt. “Everything was designed with the idea of being something that women would not only want to wear in the water, but just wear out walking around in everyday life,” Kasparian explains. “But if you were to go out in the water, those shorts would stay put. They would be comfortable — and they would be completely authentically built.” The brand was testing prototypes in the surf, eventually with pros like longtime Roxy team rider Lisa Andersen, but initially with Kasparian and her fellow Roxy and Quiksilver colleagues Lissa Zwahlen, Melissa Martinez and Amy Grace Patrick, among others. They’d paddle out in the board shorts in the morning to try out their designs before heading into the office, their noses dripping saltwater later in the day as they bent over fabric bins and sales reports.

Some of the first pairs of Roxy board shorts from designer Sonia Kasparian’s personal archive.

(Sonia Kasparian)

The functional ethos was always part of Quiksilver too. For the uninitiated, Roxy is the women’s brand of Quiksilver, the legendary Australian company that began in 1969 and made board shorts that performed as well as they looked. Their innovative, stylish design quickly became a nonnegotiable for the best and coolest surfers, and when Angeleno Bob McKnight discovered the board shorts on a surf trip in the early ’70s, he knew they’d become ubiquitous among surfers in California too. But when McKnight brought the brand to the U.S., he was met with skepticism. As McKnight tells it during our conversation at Quiksilver HQ, when he first approached Walter Hoffman, the renowned California maker of Hawaiian print fabric and eventual supplier and mentor, Hoffman exclaimed that board shorts were “the worst idea I’ve ever heard in my life.” The apparel business, according to him, was an impossible one to succeed in. McKnight protested to Hoffman, though: “We’re not in the apparel business. We’re making equipment for surfers.” The distinction paid off with pros and wannabes alike, and by the time Quiksilver launched Roxy with Kasparian in 1990, they were a cultural juggernaut. PacSun, anyone?

When I ask Kasparian about being a part of my personal archives, about being part of the historical surfwear archives, she’s “just so happy.” Despite Roxy’s eventual runaway success — it’s responsible for about 30% of Quiksilver’s sales — it was hard work to convince others in the industry that there was absolutely a need and a desire for fashionable, functional surfwear for girls. “I mean, you would go into the surf shops and you’d see all this men’s product, and you’d see a poster of the Reef girl with her butt in your face, wearing a thong,” Kasparian recounts. It’s not an exaggeration to say that Kasparian and her team made history, not just for teenage me but for countless other girls who wanted to look and feel confident in and out of the surf. “[Roxy board shorts] changed the dynamic of where women fit in the surf industry. They weren’t just the girls that sat on the sideline with the thong and watched their boys out in the water. They were the ones out in the water. And that was huge.”

I haven’t had any luck in finding the grown-up surfer girl version of Roxy board shorts. I still comb thrift racks and bulk bins for something close enough, even trying on the odd pair of early aughts Quiksilver men’s board shorts, as if, just by wanting it enough, I can somehow manifest the completely different fit that Kasparian was so intentional about designing. But board shorts for women these days just don’t hit the same way, especially the longer ones. They read midlife modesty, not stoke; they’re lacking in the joyous, playful audacity that Kasparian and her team infused into their groundbreaking designs. Maybe the board shorts I’m seeing aren’t the vibe because, well, they’re made for women, not girls, and despite my best efforts to never grow up (see: still surfing), I am in fact an adult woman and no longer a girl. And maybe, most of all, when I say I long for those Roxy board shorts from long ago, what I really mean is that I’m nostalgic for a younger version of myself: a surfer girl who was just discovering clothes that made her feel more like herself, with all the evolutions of that person still ahead of her.

SANTAIGO, Chile, May 15 (UPI) — The departure of more than 30,000 Venezuelan workers from Chile’s labor market in recent months has become an unprecedented trend that analysts say appears linked to tougher immigration policies under President José Antonio Kast and, to a greater extent, Venezuela’s political reconfiguration.

A study by the Economic Context Observatory at Diego Portales University found that the Venezuelan labor force in Chile fell 5.4% during the January-March quarter, marking five consecutive months of year-over-year declines.

Over that period, Chile’s overall labor force grew 1.1%.

“This is not an isolated phenomenon. The magnitude of the decline in the Venezuelan labor force had not been observed in previous periods,” economist Juan Bravo, director of the Economic Context Observatory and author of the study, told UPI.

Bravo said the gradual, but noticeable, return home of Venezuelans living in Chile began after the arrest of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro during a U.S. military operation Jan. 3.

“Venezuela is undergoing a transition and internal reconfiguration process, with some signs of change, but still facing high social tensions and a fragile economic situation,” he said.

With Kast taking office in March after campaigning on stricter measures against undocumented immigrants, Venezuela’s recovery process has become a more significant factor in migration patterns.

“While it is not appropriate to assume that the entire Venezuelan population in Chile will return to their country, it is also unrealistic to assume that no one will,” Bravo said.

The decline in Venezuela’s labor force is concentrated among people who have lived in Chile for fewer than five years, are age 34 or younger, male, single and hold university degrees. That group represents 80.1% of the total decrease.

Researchers warned that the reduced Venezuelan presence is directly affecting jobs in sectors that include delivery services, hospitality and customer service.

“By far, the occupation that could face the greatest labor shortage is motorcycle drivers, where 61.1% of workers are Venezuelan,” Bravo said.

He said Venezuelan workers also are heavily represented among vehicle cleaners, gas station attendants, hotel receptionists, electronics technicians and mechanics, cosmetologists and restaurant servers.

The drop in Venezuelan participation also comes as Kast’s government advances another campaign promise: the construction of a border trench aimed at stopping undocumented migration.

The so-called Border Shield Plan calls for a 37-mile trench in northern Chile along the borders with Peru and Bolivia. Authorities said in late April that 20% of the project had been completed, including an initial 7.5-mile stretch.

At the same time, Kast is seeking to restore diplomatic relations with the government of interim Venezuelan President Delcy Rodríguez to begin deporting undocumented foreigners living in Chile.

Authorities estimate that 75% of undocumented migrants in Chile are Venezuelans who cannot be deported because the lack of consular relations prevents Chilean authorities from verifying their identities and Venezuela will not accept them back.

Ernesto León, national director of migration and international police at Chile’s Investigative Police Department, or PDI, told Spanish newspaper El País that 6,000 deportations to Venezuela remain pending, while another 2,000 Venezuelans have left Chile voluntarily.

Russia launched more than 1,400 drones and 56 missiles into Ukraine on Wednesday and Thursday.

Much of the onslaught was aimed at the capital Kyiv, days after Russia threatened to do so only if Ukraine attacked its Victory Day parade in Moscow’s Red Square on May 9. It is a major Russian holiday commemorating the end of the Second World War.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had proposed a ceasefire, beginning as early as May 5.

Moscow did not respond until May 7, and presented its peace proposal as a unilateral initiative, accompanied by threats to punish Kyiv if it did not respect its terms.

Moscow said Russian front line units would “launch a massive missile strike” on central Kyiv if attacked.

Forty-three Russian drones and a number of ballistic missiles were launched into Ukraine on May 9, and another 27 drones on May 10. It was not until May 11 that Ukraine had a day of peace.

Moscow justified these attacks as reciprocity for Ukrainian assaults. Kyiv accused Moscow of breaking its own ceasefire.

Once the ceasefire was over, on the night of May 11, Russia launched 216 drones and followed up with a massive strike involving 892 drones overnight on May 12 and during the day on May 13.

The night of May 13-14 was worse with 675 drones accompanied by 56 missiles.

Official Ukrainian reports recorded strikes in at least 20 locations in the capital, including a nine-storey apartment building where 12 people were killed in the collapse.

“These are ordinary residential buildings, a school, a veterinary clinic, and other purely civilian infrastructure,” wrote Zelenskyy on his Telegram messaging channel. “These are definitely not the actions of those who believe that the war is coming to an end.”

Throughout the week, Ukraine said it shot down 92 percent of the 1,930 drones launched, close to Zelenskyy’s 95 percent kill target, with 41 out of 57 missiles downed.

Russia’s army slows down

Russia’s onslaught of came as its armies in eastern Ukraine slowed down.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, estimated they had advanced by an average of 2.9 sq km (1.1 sq miles) in the first four months of 2026, compared with 9.76 sq km (3.76 sq miles) a day in the first third of 2025 and 14.9 sq km (5.8 sq miles) a day between October 2024 and March 2025.

Two weeks into May, that daily average had already dropped to 2.63 sq km (1 sq mile), suggesting Russia’s advance is slowing almost daily.

The ISW recently estimated that Ukraine made net territorial gains of 116 sq km (45 sq miles) in April – its first such advance since a September 2023 counteroffensive.

Some of that success is attributed to Ukraine’s successful use of drones behind the front lines.

On May 8, the Azov Corps of Ukraine’s National Guard announced it had “returned to Mariupol”, four years almost to the day since it surrendered control of the city to Russian forces.

The Corps filmed drone strikes on Russian diesel tankers, army trucks and other logistics 160 km (99 miles) behind the front line along the T-0509 highway, which feeds the Russian war effort in the Donetsk region.

“The strike depth will increase,” said the Azov Corps.

Their strikes are part of a broader Ukrainian campaign to hit Russian logistics at middle ranges of about 120-150 km (75-90 miles) from the front line as announced by Zelenskyy at the end of April.

“This primarily involves military logistics, enemy warehouses and headquarters, air defence systems and other components,” he said, adding that Ukraine had increased its strikes at this depth five-fold during the past year.

“We’re already carrying out about five thousand successful strikes at a depth of 20 plus km (12 miles) every month,” said Ukrainian Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov this week.

Also this week, a Russian military reporter said Ukrainian Hornet drones were targeting Russian logistics on roads closer to the frontlines.

“Although the front line is more than 35 km away from the M-30, it is currently paralysed due to enemy [First Person View drone] surveillance,” wrote the Russian reporter.

“In 2014-2015 the front line was closer, but the M-30 was safer,” he added. “This is because many people think that if the front line moves away from large cities and logistics routes they become safer, but for some reason no one takes into account that the range of enemy drones, even FPV surveillance, increases more rapidly relative to the movement of the front line.”

Russia’s declining performance is not due to lack of effort.

“The enemy has intensified offensive actions along almost the entire front and is regrouping its troops,” said Ukrainian commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskii on May 8. “The most tense area is currently the Pokrovsk direction, where the Russian aggressor has concentrated about 106,000 personnel,” he said.

Since March, Ukraine has increased strikes against Russian oil infrastructure as many as 1,700 km (1,056 miles) inside Russia, in an effort to starve its war machine of diesel and export revenue.

Andriy Kovalenko, the head of Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation, said the Ukraine Security Service (SBU) hit the Yaroslavl oil refinery and Perm oil pumping station on May 8 – Perm sends oil in four directions across Russia to refineries and export terminals.

Russian media reports said the fire from a previous strike on the pumping station was not put out until May 11.

The SBU also said it hit the Perm refinery that day.

During the week, Ukrainian forces struck drone bases and a radar research centre in Rostov-on-Don, the Bryansk chemical plant, an explosives warehouse in Nizhny Novgorod and other targets.

Fedorov on Monday thanked Germany for investing $1bn in Ukraine’s deep strike capabilities, when his German counterpart, Boris Pistorius, visited Kyiv.

“Overall, Ukraine’s positions right now – on the front line, in our long-range sanctions, and in our joint results with partners – are the strongest they have been in years,” said Zelenskyy.

A soap star being probed by cops for child sex offences against five teenage boys remains on bail despite being arrested more than 18 months ago

A soap star previously accused of child sex offences against five teenage boys still remains under investigation 18 months after being arrested. The household name was arrested in October 2024 but has been on bail since. It is understood he has been reinterviewed since then over the claims, which date back to the 1990s when the man had major roles in some of Britain’s most popular television shows.

The police force investigating the actor, who can’t be named for legal reasons, has confirmed that inquiries are ongoing, and he remains on bail. Guidance suggests suspects can generally be on bail between three to nine months before needing to be charged or released.

The original bail period can be extended to six months by an inspector, nine months by a superintendent, with further extension needing Magistrate court approval. Detectives have spent time since his arrest analysing computers and documents which they seized upon his arrest.

The star was initially held for several hours before being released on bail. His family, including his partner, were left stunned by his arrest and he is also understood to be shocked by the historic allegations, which he denies. The five alleged victims are now all adults.

A police spokesman initially said in October 2024: “A man has been arrested on suspicion of historical child sex offences involving five victims. Officers investigating allegations relating to the 1990s detained a man. He was arrested on suspicion of several sexual offences relating to five men who were teenage boys at the time of the alleged offending. He has been conditionally bailed while enquiries continue.”

TALLINN, Estonia — Belarus’ authoritarian leader on Friday greeted U.S. Rev. Franklin Graham, who arrived in the tightly controlled country to hold the largest evangelical Christian gathering in its history.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko asked Graham to convey warm greetings to President Trump and tell him that he has “reliable friends and supporters in Belarus.”

Since Trump returned to the White House, Lukashenko has released hundreds of political prisoners as part of U.S.-brokered deals that lifted some U.S. sanctions, part of the isolated leader’s efforts to improve ties with the West.

“Without the U.S. president, it might have been more difficult for us to establish our relations,” Lukashenko told Graham, president of Samaritan’s Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Assn. Graham was accompanied by Greta Van Susteren, the anchor for Newsmax TV who is married to Trump’s special envoy for Belarus, John Coale.

Lukashenko has ruled the nation of 9.5 million with an iron fist for more than three decades, and the country has been sanctioned repeatedly by Western countries — both for its crackdown on human rights and for allowing Moscow to use its territory in the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Graham is set to hold the largest gathering of evangelicals ever in Belarus’ history, with thousands expected to attend what the organizers called the Festival of Hope at an indoor sports arena in Minsk, the capital.

Lukashenko’s rule was challenged after a 2020 presidential election, when hundreds of thousands took to the streets to protest a vote they viewed as rigged. In an ensuing crackdown, tens of thousands were detained, with many beaten by police. Prominent opposition figures fled the country or were imprisoned.

Five years after the mass demonstrations, Lukashenko won a seventh term last year in an election that the opposition called a farce.

As part of a deal in March that Washington helped broker, Lukashenko ordered the release of 250 political prisoners, while the U.S. agreed to lift sanctions from two Belarusian state banks and the country’s Finance Ministry, and to remove the top Belarusian potash producers from a sanctions list.

Another deal in April released prominent journalist Andrzej Poczobut in a swap with Poland that saw a total of 10 people freed.

However, Belarus still has 845 political prisoners, including 22 journalists, according to the Viasna human rights center.

Belarus opposition leader-in-exile Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya voiced hope that Graham’s visit will help the release of all political prisoners. “We continue to push for a complete end to the harsh political repressions in Belarus,” Tsikhanouskaya told the Associated Press.

Belarusian authorities’ permission for the massive gathering of evangelicals marks a shift, following years of crackdown on clergy — Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant — which saw dozens jailed, silenced or forced into exile for protesting the 2020 election. In the country of 9.5 million, about 80% are Orthodox Christians; nearly 14% are Catholics, residing mostly in western, northern and central parts of the country; and about 2% belong to Protestant churches.

A 2024 law required all religious organizations to reregister with authorities or face being outlawed if their loyalty to the state is in doubt.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has listed Belarus among countries with religious freedom violations, particularly noting its restrictive legislation.

Natallia Vasilevich, coordinator of the Christian Vision monitoring group, noted that even as Graham’s visit to Belarus was a “mega-important event” for evangelicals in the country, they continue to face a repressive environment.

“Some believers view Graham’s visit as a miracle and a window of opportunity, while others see a risk that they will have to turn a blind eye to repression and take part in something that makes the regime look nice,” Vasilevich said.

Karmanau writes for the Associated Press.

Didn’t hit. Didn’t pitch.

But that didn’t make Shohei Ohtani not the story.

On the contrary. Seeing him chillin’ in a Dodger-blue hoodie — and not dressed for success in his white home uniform top — was the most striking part of the Dodgers’ 5-2 victory over the San Francisco Giants on Thursday at Dodger Stadium.

Back on Tuesday, before the Dodgers’ fourth consecutive loss, with Ohtani having recorded just four hits in 36 at-bats, manager Dave Roberts announced plans to bench baseball’s best player.

To get him some R&R — rest and reset. “A good spa day,” Roberts would joke Thursday.

Of course, it’s Ohtani, so much is being made of the much-needed breather.

Dodgers two-way player Shohei Ohtani rounds the bases after hitting a solo home run Tuesday at Dodger Stadium.

(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)

Maybe you hate it. Maybe you hate it for him. Maybe you think a $700 million contract doesn’t account for days off. Maybe you were among the unfortunate 51,048 paying customers who came to watch the Dodgers even their series with the Giants without Ohtani’s help, and you’re sad about it.

Maybe, though, you should give Roberts the benefit of the doubt. Maybe you should remind yourself Ohtani isn’t actually a unicorn. Not a myth, but a man.

“Mentally, the days that he does pitch, it’s tougher on him [to also hit],” Roberts said Thursday. “Physically, it’s the day after.”

And so the manager wasn’t joking; he wasn’t juking. Even after Ohtani homered for the first time in 53 plate appearances in Tuesday’s 6-2 loss, Roberts stuck with the plan and gave his superstar a whole day off Thursday after having him only pitch the night before.

Only. As in that he only pitched seven scoreless innings, only struck out eight and only lowered his ERA to a major-league leading 0.82. Yes, he only teed up the Dodgers for a 4-0 victory. An honestly exceptional day’s work for anyone else.

Then on Thursday, Ohtani contributed only vibes.

Which was weird. Which was good.

Instead of swinging a bat, Ohtani served as the welcoming committee after Will Smith led off the game with a home run. Ohtani was later an accessory to Smith’s prank filling Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s hood with wrapped pieces of bubble gum. And still, for the second consecutive game without him in the lineup, the Dodgers (26-18) finished the job.

For all of their recent scuffing and shuffling, these loaded, baseball-ruining Dodgers should be able to survive an Ohtani skip day every so often.

Even without Ohtani or Mookie Betts, a lineup with Smith, Freddie Freeman, Kyle Tucker, Andy Pages, Max Muncy and Teoscar Hernández should be able to overpower the lowly Giants, who have been outscored by 45 runs and now are 18-26.

Dodgers pitcher Shohei Ohtani laughs with teammates while sitting in the dugout before a game against the Giants Thursday.

(Ryan Sun / Associated Press)

But maybe you think: Here the Dodgers go again, making it too complicated, being too cute. They’re back to being too cautious, too careful.

But don’t think of it as load management. Consider it asset management.

The Dodgers are going to protect their personnel from as much wear and tear as possible — and from themselves.

Obviously, Ohtani — who came into the season appearing to really covet the Cy Young award — is capable of multidimensional greatness. He’s the Him who closed out the National League Championship Series with a wildest-dream-exceeding, 10-strikeout, three-home run game.

But it’s important that the Dodgers don’t let the 31-year-old burn himself out.

“The thing is with all players, once you get to a point where you’re exhausted and tired and that’s in the middle of the summer, it’s tough to recoup,” Roberts said. “So you kind of have to know how to push them but not get to the red line point. If we can kind of hold and get a good rhythm, which I think we’re getting a good grasp on now, then we’ll have more of a base, a foundation to push him when the time is right. It’s certainly not right now.”

Roberts said Ohtani is sharing in these decisions. If there are days that Roberts feels like Ohtani would benefit from a day off, he’s given the manager his blessing.

Sometimes less is more, even for the guy who can do it all.

Who: Chelsea vs Manchester City
What: English FA Cup final
Where: Wembley Stadium in London, United Kingdom
When: Saturday, May 16 at 3pm (14:00 GMT)
How to follow: We’ll have all the buildup on Al Jazeera Sport from 11 GMT in advance of our live text commentary stream.

History will be made on Saturday as Manchester City become the first side to line up in four consecutive finals as they take on Chelsea for the trophy.

Between them, the sides have won 15 FA Cup titles, but this is a first meeting between the clubs in the final itself – despite the teams between them appearing in five of the last six finals.

City, who have already claimed the League Cup, are still in with the chance of a domestic treble. Chelsea, however, have been engaged in a managerial merry-go-round – all off the back of beating Paris Saint-Germain to claim the expanded FIFA Club World Cup last year.

Al Jazeera Sport takes you through all the information you need to know in the run-up to the 145th FA Cup final.

Who won last season’s FA Cup final?

Crystal Palace beat City 1-0 in last season’s final to lift the trophy for the first time in their history.

Eberechi Eze scored the only goal of the game after 16 minutes to sign off from the Eagles in style. The England forward joined Arsenal at the end of the season.

City had dominated the final with a staggering 78 percent of possession.

Who did Chelsea beat in the FA Cup semifinal?

Chelsea overcame Leeds United 1-0 in their last four clash, with Enzo Fernandez scoring the only goal in the 23rd minute.

The Blues thumped Port Vale in the quarterfinals with a 7-0 win, while there was a more Hollywood feel to their clash with Wrexham in the prior round.

Extra time was required in their 4-2 win in Wales.

Who did Man City beat in the semifinals?

City were well tested in the semifinal by Championship side Southampton as Nico Gonzalez scored with three minutes remaining after Jeremy Doku’s 82nd-minute strike cancelled out Finn Azaz’s opener.

Liverpool were seen off in the quarterfinals with a 4-0 thumping at Etihad Stadium, while a 3-1 win was recorded at Newcastle United in the round prior to that.

What happened the last time Chelsea played Man City?

Manchester City were 3-0 winners in the last meeting between the sides, which came in a Premier League fixture in west London on April 12.

All three goals came within 17 minutes of each other in the second half, with Nico O’Reilly, Marc Guehi and Jeremy Doku netting at Stamford Bridge.

Where are Man City and Chelsea in the Premier League?

City sit second in the English top flight, just two points behind leaders Arsenal with two games to play.

Club World Cup holders Chelsea have sacked both Enzo Maresca and Liam Rosenior this season and sit ninth in the league.

Calum McFarlane will be taking charge of his sixth game in his second spell as the club’s interim manager.

What happened the last time Chelsea and Man City met in the FA Cup?

The teams last met in the FA Cup in a semifinal clash at Wembley Stadium in April, 2024.

Bernardo Silva scored the only goal of the game to send City through to the final, where they were beaten 2-1 by Erik ten Hag’s Manchester United.

Alejandro Garnacho, now of Chelsea, gave United the lead, which Kobbie Mainoo doubled before the break. Jeremy Doku netted an 87th-minute goal to set up a tense finale.

How many times have Chelsea won the FA Cup?

Chelsea have had their name etched on the trophy on eight occasions, with their first win coming in 1970 as they beat Leeds United 2-1 in a replay at Manchester United’s Old Trafford.

The first attempt ended in a 2-2 draw, leading to the first time a final would be replayed. Wembley hosted the opening match, but was unavailable for the replay due to the pitch being in unfit condition.

How many times have Man City won the FA Cup?

City have lifted the cup on seven occasions, with their first win coming in 1904 with a 1-0 win over Bolton Wanderers.

When did Chelsea last win the FA Cup?

Chelsea’s last win came in 2022 and required penalties against Liverpool to seal the win.

The match ended 0-0 after extra time – the first final to end goalless since Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United beat Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal on spot kicks in 2005.

When did Man City last win the FA Cup?

City last lifted the trophy in 2023, beating Manchester United 2-1.
In a final that would see a rerun between the cross-city rivals the following year, Ilkay Gundogan opened the scoring in the first minute and later restored his side’s lead five minutes after the break, after a Bruno Fernandes penalty had levelled the tie at the break.

Who has won the most FA Cup titles?

Arsenal are the record winners of the competition with 14 victories to their name. The first was in 1930 under the club’s famous manager, Herbert Chapman. The Gunners beat Huddersfield Town 2-0 in the final.

Their last win came in 2020 when they beat Chelsea 2-1. It was the first of three successive finals for the Blues, who tasted defeat the following year against Leicester City before the 2023 win against Liverpool.

Manchester United are the second-most successful side in the competition’s history with 13 wins. Chelsea’s eight victories are joint third on the list with Liverpool and Tottenham.

When was the first FA Cup final and who won it?

The first FA Cup final was staged in 1872 with Wanderers beating Royal Engineers 1-0 in a match staged at the Kennington Oval cricket ground, which remains the current home to the English county cricket club, Surrey.

Head-to-head

This will be the 181st meeting between the teams, with Chelsea winning 99 of the meetings and Manchester City winning 68 of the encounters.

The first match was played in 1907 in the old Division One of English football (now the Premier League), with the match ending in a 2-2 draw in London.

How many times have Man City and Chelsea met in the FA Cup?

This will be the 11th meeting between the sides in the FA Cup, with City winning six of the matches to Chelsea’s four wins.

The first cup meeting was in February, 1915, with Chelsea winning 2-1 in Manchester. City had to wait 33 years for a chance of cup revenge, which they took at first attempt with a 2-0 home win in January 1948.

This will be the side’s seventh meeting in the competition in the last 13 seasons.

Chelsea team news

Estevao Willian, Jamie Gittens and Jesse Derry are all out with injuries, but Robert Sanchez, Pedro Neto and Alejandro Garnacho have all trained in the build-up to the game as they attempt to shake off knocks.

Chelsea predicted starting lineup

Sanchez; Gusto, Fofana, Colwill, Hato; James, Caicedo; Palmer, Fernandez, Cucurella; Pedro

Manchester City team news

Guardiola made several changes to his starting lineup for their last outing in the Premier League game against Crystal Palace, ⁠with Erling Haaland playing no part.

The Norwegian will be leading City’s attack in Saturday’s showpiece, though, aiming to correct a remarkable statistic.

Haaland has scored 161 goals in 196 games for City in all competitions, yet has never found the net or made an assist in the 12 semifinals or finals in which he has ⁠featured.

Rodri remains an injury doubt with a groin issue.

Manchester City predicted starting lineup

Trafford; Nunes, Khusanov, Guehi, O’Reilly; Gonzalez, Bernardo; Semenyo, Cherki, Doku; Haaland

The Pentagon has outlined plans to acquire at least 10,000 lower-cost cruise missiles over the next three years, as well as a similar number of relatively ‘cheap’ Blackbeard hypersonic missiles. The new framework deals are part of a broader strategy to dramatically bolster America’s stockpiles of standoff strike munitions and prime the industrial base to sustain those inventories going forward. This is all seen as especially critical for supporting the demands of future high-end fights, such as one in the Pacific against China, and doing so in a cost-effective manner.

“The Department of War has reached new framework agreements with a slate of disruptive new entrants and commercial innovators to aggressively expand the United States military’s strike capabilities,” the Pentagon declared in a press release today. “Agreements with Anduril, CoAspire, Leidos, and Zone 5 will launch the Low-Cost Containerized Missles [sic; Missiles] (LCCM) program, while a parallel agreement with Castelion advances an initiative to scale low-cost hypersonic solutions.”

“The new frameworks for LCCM will drive a fast-paced experimentation and assessment campaign that will culminate in a Military Utility Assessment by the sponsoring Service Components. Designed to move at the speed of commercial industry, the agreements establish the terms for future firm-fixed-price production contracts,” the release adds. “This effort positions the Department to procure over 10,000 low-cost cruise missiles across these portfolios in just three years, starting in 2027. The Department is creating a pathway for rapid and repeatable production of high-volume, lethal strike capabilities. The agreements include firm fixed material-unit costs for production lots in 2027 through 2029.”

The Pentagon has not yet explicitly defined what it means by “containerized” in this context, or how exactly these munitions might be fielded. However, there is already a clear focus on designs that could be fired from containerized launchers on land or loaded on ships. As TWZ has reported on many occasions, containerized systems offer immense operational flexibility, as well as the ability to blend in with standard shipping containers, creating targeting challenges for opponents. The LCCM munitions could be adapted for air launch, if they are not expected to also be employable in that mode already. Common munitions that could be employed from launch platforms across domains would offer additional benefits in terms of logistics and production, as well as helping to keep costs down through economies of scale.

Anduril has already announced that its contribution will be the surface-launched version of its Barracuda-500M design, a weapon that can also be air-launched. The company says it plans to deliver a minimum of 1,000 of these weapons to the U.S. military each year for the next three years.

Leidos says it will supply an LCCM design that leverages existing work on its air-launched AGM-190A Small Cruise Missile (SCM), also known as Black Arrow, originally developed for U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM). The company plans to deliver 3,000 of these units under the new framework deal.

Leidos completes successful test launch of a Small Cruise Missile

“At approximately twice the size of the AGM-190A, the LCCM offers increased mission effectiveness and fuel capacity to maximize range. Building on the Leidos Small Cruise Missile’s heritage, the LCCM leverages key design features including a modular airframe and a common Weapon Open Systems Architecture (WOSA) to enable rapid integration, upgrades and mission adaptability,” Leidos’ press release adds. “The design also utilizes Leidos’ established supply chain and scalable production approach. While initially ground-launched, LCCM’s modular design could also support maritime platform integration and air-launched variants.”

At the time of writing, CoAspire and Zone 5, the latter of which was recently acquired by Norway’s Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace, do not appear to have issued press releases regarding the Pentagon’s LCCM announcement. However, both companies have already developed cruise missile designs under the U.S. Air Force’s Extended Range Attack Munition (ERAM) program, which was focused first on delivering new, lower-cost air-launched strike capabilities to Ukraine. CoAspire’s ERAM design is called the Rapidly Adaptable Affordable Cruise Missile (RAACM), while one from Zone 5 is named Rusty Dagger.

RAACM Cruise Missile Video Long Range Flights Summer 2025 Cleared for Public Release

ERAM is also now feeding into the Air Force’s Family of Affordable Mass Missiles (FAMM) program. That service’s proposed budget for the 2027 Fiscal Year had already laid out plans to buy nearly 28,000 FAMM munitions over the next five years.

CoAspire has talked in the past about surface-launched versions of its RAACM and its new longer-range RAACM-ER. Zone 5 could similarly look to adapt its existing Rusty Dagger missile to meet the specific LCCM requirements.

“Concurrently, once Castelion achieves testing and validation, the Department will award a two-year multi-year procurement contract for a minimum of 500 Blackbeard missiles annually, with options to extend for up to five years,” the Pentagon’s press release today also notes. “To further encourage Castelion’s self-funded facility expansion, the Department is actively seeking the necessary authorizations and appropriations to purchase over 12,000 Blackbeard missiles over five years.”

Castelion has already been developing a ground-launched version of Blackbeard for the U.S. Army. Last month, the company formally announced that it had received a separate contract from the U.S. Navy for an air-launched version to arm that service’s F/A-18E/F Super Hornets.

“The experimentation and assessment campaign for LCCM will be led by the Office of the Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering, with the Army Program Acquisition Executive Fires serving as the transition partner and acquisition lead for procurement,” according to the Pentagon. “To kickstart this initiative, the Department will procure test missiles from all four LCCM companies starting in June 2026, laying the groundwork for the assessment phase of the program. These agreements were developed in close coordination with the United States Air Force Program Acquisition Executive Weapons, the Test Resource Management Center and multiple components across the War Department, including the Office of the Under Secretary of War for Acquisition and Sustainment.”

It should be stressed here that the problem set that LCCM and the tangential framework arrangement with Castelion are intended to address, that of a critical need for production of cost-effective strike munitions at scale, is not new. Expenditures of critical air-to-surface and surface-to-surface munitions, as well as anti-air interceptors, by the U.S. military, as well as its allies and partners, in conflicts in recent years have only underscored the vital need to bolster these inventories. Demand for stand-off munitions, in particular, would be far greater in any future high-end fight against a near-peer adversary like China. That is a scenario where American forces could easily find themselves tasked to prosecute tens of thousands, of targets, just in the opening phase.

Furthermore, existing munitions are often exquisite in design, and take months, or more often years, of lead time to produce. The Pentagon’s focus on “disruptive new entrants and commercial innovators,” rather than any of America’s long-established prime defense contractors, with its newly announced framework deals, is extremely significant in its own right. This is the latest example of a major shift away from awarding high-profile contracts to large legacy providers, helping to diversify the industrial base and promote competition. This also means moving away from companies accustomed to very long lead procurement and production arrangements.

The LCCM effort follows years of work in the pursuit of lower-cost stand-off munitions, especially by the U.S. Air Force. This is underscored by the fact that all of the companies named today already have relevant designs that they have been working on under contract to the U.S. military. This, in turn, has already led to an explosion in the market for munitions in this general category, many of which increasingly blur the line between long-range kamikaze drones, traditional cruise missiles, and decoys. It should also be noted that the new lower-cost munitions are not intended to replace existing exquisite designs, but instead to form a valuable high-low capability mix that offers a more cost-effective and flexible blend of options for striking targets.

The U.S. Army and U.S. Navy have also made significant investments already in containerized launchers capable of firing various types of longer-ranged missiles.

If the frameworks announced today produce the promised results, they could be instrumental in laying the foundation for the production of lower-cost strike munitions for years to come.

Update: 6:20 PM EST –

Zone 5 has now provided a statement regarding today’s announcement from the Pentagon.

“Zone 5 is proud to partner with the Department of War on the Low-Cost Containerized Missiles program to deliver affordable, scalable strike capacity to our warfighters needed to deter and defeat emerging threats,” Thomas Akers, CEO of Zone 5 Technologies, said. “This program reflects exactly where American defense innovation must go: faster development, on-demand production, and high-volume weapons that can be fielded at the pace of relevance. We are honored to be a part of this effort to expand the munitions industrial base and strengthen America’s arsenal.”

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

Rivals Season 2 has landed with fans just discovering Dermot O’Leary’s personal connection to the saucy comedy-drama.

Dermot O’Leary may not be in Rivals Season 2 but he does have a close link to the Disney Plus hit.

Two years after Rivals exploded onto our screens, the raunchy Disney Plus drama is back for more with the first three episodes of Rivals dropping today, Friday, May 15.

As fans eagerly await for the rest of the series to become available, many are only just discovering This Morning star Dermot O’Leary has a close tie with the 1980s phenomenon.

He is married to Norwegian-British television and film producer and director Dee Koppang O’Leary who has worked behind the scenes on both seasons of Rivals.

She is also well known for her work on other major shows such as The Split, Bridgerton and The Crown, just to name a few.

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Dermot and Dee have been married since September 2012, having met at a TV production company where they were both working. They dated for nine years before getting engaged in New York in 2011 and married the following year.

The pair now share one son together, Kasper, who was born in June 2020. While the famous couple tend to keep their marriage out of the spotlight, Dermot did show his support on Rivals season two by hosting an “in conversation” event with its cast and producers earlier this month.

Following the success of the first series, Dermot also posted that he was “proud as punch” of his wife after winning two Broadcast Awards.

Dermot previously spoke to Fabulous magazine about the secret to having a happy marriage.

“We don’t have the recipe, but it’s going well.

“It’s a work in progress, isn’t it? The key for me is giving each other space, not giving each other a hard time and actually having fun together. And we do.”

He added: “It’s about the neighbourhood you live in.

“If you embrace the greengrocers, the local store, the dry cleaners, you just become a face and part of a community. And that’s how you have a normal life.”

Rivals Season 2 will continue to air weekly every Friday on Disney Plus.

A MAIN road into a major UK airport is set to shut over the half term – and could spark getaway chaos for thousands of Brits heading on holiday.

The works will take up to 11 days to complete.

An overnight road closure will block a main access route into Leeds Bradford Airport, with works starting next Monday (May 18).

From 7pm to 6am, the route between the Pool Bank and Dyneley Arms junction and Leeds Bradford Airport will be shut, with works set to last until Friday, May 29.

The airport notified travellers of the disruption via social media, and said a sign-posted diversion route will be in place, operating via the A660.

It added that those travelling from North Yorkshire, the North East, and Wetherby may find their journey times up to 30 minutes longer than usual.

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The airport also suggested to factor in additional time when travelling to or from the area, as disruption is to be expected.

Online, travellers reacted with disbelief and frustration over the schedule of the closures.

One said: “Staggering timing as the Friday and the overnight on Saturday is the first day of half term so lots of families will be travelling.”

Others complained that the works in place last week had caused “horrendous” traffic, where “there was no way to get through”.

Leeds Bradford Airport welcomes more than four million passengers a year, with flights from airlines like Jet2, Ryanair, and easyJet.

Last year, it opened a new multi-million pound terminal and aims to serve seven million travellers annually by 2030.

NEW YORK — Democratic leaders, desperate to compete in red states where their party brand is toxic, are embracing something new this midterm season: not backing Democrats.

In states like Nebraska and Alaska, Democratic officials are, in some cases, looking past their own party’s candidates while subtly encouraging — or even openly promoting — independent candidates they hope can outperform the Democratic label. The Democratic National Committee and some of its allies in Washington are quietly supporting the new strategy.

Meanwhile, some of the independent candidates are chatting in a group text about their approach as they plot a path that could shake up Congress, which is consumed by partisan gridlock.

Nebraska Democrats this week chose a nominee for U.S. Senate, Cindy Burbank, who said a major campaign priority was to ensure a Democrat wouldn’t be on the fall ballot to pull support from independent Dan Osborn. Shortly after polls closed, Burbank reiterated her plan to drop out in the coming weeks during a private conversation with a party official, according to state Democratic chair Jane Kleeb.

Democratic leaders believe Osborn, who came within 7 percentage points of winning a Senate seat in 2024, has the best chance to defeat Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts.

Democrats’ pivot toward independents is part of an intentional strategy in some places — and something closer to a wink and a nod in others — that covers a handful of high-profile Senate and House and even statehouse contests. Independent Senate candidates are also running in states like Idaho, South Dakota and Montana, where Democratic leadership has so far been unwilling to fully embrace the independents, although many view them as the Democrats’ best chance to stop Republicans this fall.

“For some states, and Nebraska is one of them, where Democrats are 32% of the electorate, this is a long-term strategy for us,” said Kleeb, who also serves as a vice chair to the Democratic National Committee.

Kleeb said her state party is backing independents in at least four state legislative seats in addition to the U.S. Senate: “We have to build a coalition with independents in order to win elections so we can do good work for the people. Period.”

Some of the Democratic Party’s national political machine appears to be on board.

The Democrats’ fundraising site, ActBlue, serves some of the independent candidates, as do popular Democratic-allied website builders. At the same time, some of the party’s campaign committees in Washington quietly provide logistical support in some cases, while avoiding public criticism of the independent candidates even in some races where there is a Democratic nominee.

“The Democratic Party’s brand is awful right now,” said Democratic strategist Josh Schwerin. “The combination of the brand problem and the existential nature of the threat that our country is facing requires us to have a big tent and look for candidates who can win.”

There are risks for the Democratic Party

Some Democratic donors, strategists and party leaders from other states have privately pushed back, insisting Democrats should not look past their own nominees for short-term political gain. They want Democratic officials, in Washington and on the ground in red states, to work harder to make the Democratic brand more attractive — even if it takes several more years to be competitive.

“What’s the independent going to do for the Democratic Party if they win?” asked Democratic strategist Mike Ceraso, who sees the shift toward independents as an attempt to disguise Democrats in some cases. “We’re the party of truth and honesty and integrity, but we’re playing these stupid political games?”

And there is no guarantee that the independent candidates, if elected, would support all of the Democrats’ policy priorities or even Democratic leadership in Congress.

In Idaho, independent Senate candidate Todd Achilles, an Army veteran and former Democratic state legislator, said he won’t be caucusing with either party if elected. He explained his politics as “straight down the middle,” and said he believes in individual liberties.

“Idahoans should be able to live how they want,” he said. But the Democratic Party was a bad fit because it “has given up on little red states like Idaho.”

On his list of problems with Democrats is that the party made a big mistake by initially running Joe Biden again for president in 2024. But he also said “the shine is coming off” Trump, whom Idaho voters backed by 36 points in 2024.

Achilles said he and other military veterans running for Senate as independents chat in the text chain and are “very much on the same page.” He says the group wants to see “guardrails,” including term and age limits and campaign finance reform.

“The priority is to get Congress functioning again,” he said. “We gotta break the grip of the two-party system.”

‘I’ll never vote for a Democrat’

In South Dakota, Navy and Air Force veteran Brian Bengs has launched an independent bid to defeat Republican incumbent Sen. Mike Rounds, who’s seeking a third term this fall.

Bengs ran as a Democrat against Senate Majority Leader John Thune four years ago and lost by 43 points.

A lifelong independent, he said he got turned down by the party this time when he sought to run with its organizational support but without the label. Still, he insists he can win without the party’s formal backing.

One key lesson from his 2022 campaign, he says, was how hard it was to break through with the Democratic Party label.

Voters would immediately ask, “What are you?” he recalled.

“When you say, ‘I’m a lifelong independent running as a Democrat,’” Bengs said, the response was quick. “‘I’ll never vote for a Democrat.’ And that was it,” he said.

“So that takeaway soured me on running again in any party system, because it was just a soul-sucking experience.”

In Alaska, some Democrats believe that commercial fisherman Bill Hill, a retired school superintendent, may represent their best hope in defeating first-term Republican Rep. Nick Begich for the state’s only House seat.

Hill, a lifelong independent, raised more than $780,000 in the first three months of the year, besting Democrat Matt Schultz, a pastor, who raised $578,000 from last October through March.

The state Democratic Party declined to endorse Schultz at its recent convention, which Hill also attended. The House Democrats’ campaign committee in Washington has also declined so far to promote Schultz’s candidacy. Hill, meanwhile, is racking up local union endorsements.

Hill’s message to voters, he said, is the same for Republicans, Democrats and independents: “You need to be pragmatic about who you choose to support in this election cycle, because at the end of the day, we need a change in the House seat in Alaska.”

A spokeswoman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee criticized independents like Osborn, Bengs, Achilles and Seth Bodnar, who is running in Montana, as “fake Independents who would push liberal Democratic policies in the Senate.”

Currently, there are two independents in the Senate: Maine Sen. Angus King and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Both caucus with Democrats.

In an interview, Hill said he’s unlikely to caucus with Republicans in Washington if elected, but he’s not committing to joining Democrats either. He was reluctant to criticize the Democratic Party or Trump.

Hill acknowledged the challenge of running for Congress as an independent, but said there are benefits, too.

“There’s freedom,” he said. “I can truly represent the working people of Alaska.”

Peoples and Catalini write for the Associated Press.

Hi, and welcome to another edition of Dodgers Dugout. My name is Houston Mitchell and I’m back. The wedding was beautiful. Thanks to all of you who wrote in with well wishes.

The big news is that the Dodgers have continued to slump. Since starting the season 15-4, they have gone 11-14, including two four-game losing streaks. Why is this happening? Well, there’s usually not one thing that causes team slumps. It’s easy to blame Shohei Ohtani, since he isn’t hitting at his normal spectacular level, but you can say that about other players too.

Let’s look at some numbers. Let’s see where the Dodgers rank among the 30 MLB teams in some categories. These numbers are through Wednesday:

Runs per game
4.93 (seventh in MLB)

Batting average
.263 (second)

OB%
.342 (first)

Slugging%
.433 (second)

Grounded into double play
37 (tied for third)

Grounded into double play %
10.6% (eighth)

Batting average with runners in scoring position
.266 (ninth)

Batting average with two out and RISP
.241 (11th)

ERA
3.40 (third)

Rotation ERA
3.28 (fourth)

Bullpen ERA
3.60 (10th)

Nothing really stands out there. They are in the top 10 in almost every category. If you had to point at a troubling spot, it’s double plays. They hit a lot of hard grounders right at fielders with runners on base. Is that just bad luck? Better scouting by opponents? Too soon to tell.

The team slump really began on April 28. They were 20-9 going into that game, 6-9 since then. Let’s look at some individual numbers (through Wednesday) during that bad streak:

Kyle Tucker: .318/.446/.545, 7 doubles, 1 homer, 5 RBIs
Freddie Freeman: .288/.362/.423, 4 doubles, 1 homer, 5 RBIs
Andy Pages: .283/.333/.528, 1 double, 4 homers, 10 RBIs
Will Smith: .270/.333/.324, 2 doubles, 3 RBIs
Alex Call, .267/.368/.400 (4 for 15)
Teoscar Hernández: .256/.347/.279, 1 double, 1 RBI
Alex Freeland: .250/.344/.357, 1 homer, 2 RBIs
Max Muncy: .214/.313/.405, 2 doubles, 2 homers, 6 RBIs
Hyeseong Kim: .200/.243/.286, 1 double, 1 triple, 1 RBI
Dalton Rushing, .167/.200/.167, 1 RBI
Santiago Espinal, .167/.167/.417 (2 for 12)
Mookie Betts, .154/.154/.385 (2 for 13)
Shohei Ohtani, .143/.294/.238, 1 double, 1 homer, 4 RBIs
Miguel Rojas, .095/.136/.095 (2 for 21)

Almost every player is hitting below their career averages in almost every category. It’s a teamwide slump that has lasted two weeks. It’s dragging the team numbers down, because remember above when I said they are in the top 10 in every category? Well, before the slump they were in the top five. If this continues, they will keep sliding down the rankings.

And while it’s certainly not all Ohtani’s fault, he is mired in a deep slump. The Dodgers gave him two days off from hitting Wednesday and Thursday (he pitched Wednesday).

“For me, with any hitter, when the quality of at-bat starts to go down consistently, I think that’s a telling sign there needs to be a break,” Dave Roberts told reporters. “Because you’re just not able to — whether it’s the mechanics, the mind — stay within your game plan, and then the chase starts to spike.”

Dalton Rushing has crashed back to earth. Teoscar Hernández has lost all his power. The whole team, except for Andy Pages and Kyle Tucker, has lost power. Maybe they forgot to pay their Edison bill. They are on pace to hit 214 homers this season. Last season, they hit 244. The last time they hit fewer homers in a season was 2012, when they hit 121. And won 111 games.

Should we be worried about the Dodgers? Well, they’ve gone through teamwide slumps in the past. If they are still hitting poorly when June begins, then be worried. And keep in mind, they are 26-18 and on pace to win 96 games this season. Last season they won 93 and were 29-15 after 44 games. In 2024, they won 98 games and were 29-15 after 44 games. And those seasons ended pretty well. The Dodgers are just getting their teamwide slump out of the way early this season.

Of course, I was tracking the team while gearing up for the wedding, and once I came back they have now won two in a row. Perhaps the slump is already over.

Unfortunately, the team the Dodgers seem to have the most trouble with, the lowly Angels, are up next on the schedule. Last season, the Dodgers lost all six games against the Angels. If the Angels sweep them this weekend, maybe I’ll start writing an Angels newsletter.

René Cárdenas dies

When I was a kid, the Dodgers’ Spanish broadcast crew was always Jaime Jarrín and René Cárdenas. Unfortunately, one half of that duo, Cárdenas, is no longer with us as he died Sunday. He was 96.

Cárdenas started with the Dodgers in 1958 and was the No. 1 broadcast, with Jarrín the No. 2 man. Cárdenas left the team to broadcast elsewhere, then returned to the Dodgers for the 1982 season.

As colleague Ed Guzman writes in the Cárdenas obit: By this point, Jarrín was firmly in place as the team’s lead Spanish-language play-by-play announcer — particularly in the wake of Fernandomania the season before, when Jarrín’s profile was raised as Fernando Valenzuela’s interpreter during his media interviews.

“It was explained to him by our producer, ‘You can’t come back as the No. 1 announcer because Jaime is established, he has many years as the lead announcer and he is beloved by the community,’” Jarrín said Monday. “René said, ‘I don’t care, I’ll come back as the No. 2 with Jaime. I just want to come back to the game of baseball.’ He was determined to return to the Dodgers.

“It was during that time that we established a close-knit friendship and we were well-received by the community as a broadcast duo.”

Cárdenas worked with the Dodgers through the 1998 season and moved back to Houston.

Our condolences to his family, friends and loved ones.

Jason Heyward is back

But not as a player. He has rejoined the team in the front office as a special assistant to the general manager. “I asked for an opportunity,” Heyward said. “I asked for an opportunity to learn. I have a goal of potentially one day being in the front office. But I understand there’s a lot I have to learn on this side of things. It’s great to be a player, it’s great to have that experience. I think that will help me along the way. But at the same time, I knew it was important to learn to scout, how to evaluate players, learn the R&D, analytics, terminologies and things like that.”

Heyward played for the Dodgers from 2023-24.

Up next

Friday: Dodgers (*Justin Wrobleski, 5-1, 2.42 ERA) at Angels (Jack Kochanowicz, 2-2, 3.97 ERA), 6:38 p.m., Sportsnet LA, KTTV, AM 570, KTNQ 1020, KLAA 830

Saturday: Dodgers (*Blake Snell, 0-1, 12.00 ERA) at Angels (Jose Soriano, 6-2, 1.66 ERA), 6:38 p.m., Sportsnet LA, KCOP 13, AM 570, KTNQ 1020, KLAA 830

Sunday: Dodgers (Roki Sasaki, 1-3, 5.88 ERA) at Angels (TBA), 1:07 p.m., Sportsnet LA, KCOP 13, AM 570, KTNQ 1020, KLAA 830

All times Pacific

*-left-handed

In case you missed it

Kiké Hernández ‘little bit shocked’ by reception in Albuquerque while on rehab assignment

Shohei Ohtani holds Giants scoreless, Dodgers’ bats heat up to snap losing streak

Fan favorite Jason Heyward joins Dodgers as a special assistant with an eye on more

Shaikin: Mark Walter says the Dodgers can’t win all the time. Even Magic Johnson agrees

Dodgers tout outfielder Alek Thomas’ upside after acquiring him from the Diamondbacks

René Cárdenas, broadcasting pioneer who was Dodgers’ first Spanish-language announcer, dies

And finally

One hour of Vin Scully telling stories. Watch and listen here.

Until next time…

Have a comment or something you’d like to see in a future Dodgers newsletter? Email me at houston.mitchell@latimes.com. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.

Manchester City face Chelsea in the FA Cup final looking to add to their League Cup success and with eye on EPL title.

Pep Guardiola insists Manchester City have had a successful season, whether or not they win the Premier League title or the FA Cup final against Chelsea on Saturday.

Guardiola’s side will put their attempt to catch Premier League leaders Arsenal on hold as they head to Wembley for a fourth successive FA Cup final appearance.

City start every season with the Premier League and Champions League as their main targets, but they are on the verge of falling short in both.

Knocked out of the Champions League last 16 by Real Madrid in March, City will be five points behind Arsenal if the Gunners beat relegated Burnley at home on Monday.

Guardiola’s men can close the gap back to two points with victory at Bournemouth in their penultimate match of the season on Tuesday.

But Arsenal would then still be able to guarantee their first English title since 2004 by winning at Crystal Palace on May 24.

Having already won the League Cup by beating Arsenal, City have a chance for a domestic double this weekend.

However, Guardiola is adamant the campaign has been positive, no matter what happens at Wembley or in the title race.

“It depends on the trophies you lift. Sometimes you lift trophies and the season has been successful,” said Guardiola, who would only offer “we’ll see” when asked if Rodri would be fit to start in midfield.

“Sometimes, you lift and the truth is the season has been really, really bad.

“I said a few weeks ago this season has been good. Really, really good.”

After starting with Erling Haaland, Rayan Cherki and Jeremy Doku on the bench for Wednesday’s win against Crystal Palace, Guardiola is likely to field a full-strength team against Chelsea instead of prioritising the title fight.

“It is the final of the FA Cup. The message is there are two prestigious clubs at Wembley in the FA Cup final. Our fans make an incredible effort to come down to London. It is not cheap,” he said.

“We try to perform as much as possible to win. It is always the game plan.”

City have lost the last two FA Cup finals against Crystal Palace and Manchester United, who they had beaten in the 2023 showpiece.

“There’s excitement, of course. I hope we can do better than the last two times,” Guardiola said.

“Wembley is still a special place. Everything is so nice. The pitch is extraordinary. We are desperate to perform well.”

Ahead of his 24th trip to Wembley with City, Guardiola joked that he is “so disappointed” he has not had a stand named after him at the home of English football.

“So many times I have been there, at least a lounge or a box or something like that. Maybe I have to go 24 more times,” he said.

Guardiola has one year left on his City contract and is yet to sign a new deal amid speculation that he could end his decade at the Etihad Stadium once the current campaign is over.

Asked about reports that City’s fitness coach Lorenzo Buenaventura and goalkeeping coach Xabi Mancisidor are set to leave the club, Guardiola said with a smirk: “I extended the contract with them three more years,” before adding: “Nope”.

US President Donald Trump said he discussed US arms sales to Taiwan with Chinese leader Xi Jinping during talks in Beijing. Trump also said he is considering lifting sanctions on Chinese companies that buy Iranian oil.

Professional visual artists hate generative AI. This should come as no surprise, but a new survey released last month by a trio of researchers at Carnegie Mellon University breaks down just how much: 99% of respondents out of a pool of 378 verified professional visual artists noted their dislike for the technology, with 92% categorizing it as “strong dislike.”

Even more jarring, the survey found that 80% of respondents believe that they’re in competition with the technology. The artists expressed deep concerns about the impact AI is having on their careers, with 54% saying it has diminished their income, 75% their job and clientele security, and 90% their income opportunities. Another 77% said it had negatively impacted their career growth, 61% the future of their career, and 74% their career sustainability.

The jobs most heavily affected include commercial artists, graphic designers and concept artists in entertainment whose work is sometimes entirely replaced — or largely commandeered — by images generated using tools like Midjourney, Adobe Fireplay or DALL-E; but fine artists working in traditional media are also experiencing a devaluation of their work and a shrinking pool of employers.

“I’m working on getting out of the field and planning to get my PhD in something non-art related because I can’t see my current work as being sustainable when I see them actively replacing me [with] chatGPT,” a costume designer and illustrator said in the survey, which notes, “Demoralization, disempowerment, disrespect, stress, and fear are also commonly expressed, not only regarding individual careers but also extending towards the field at large.”

“It’s been pretty demoralizing at times seeing a lot of younger artists giving up because they don’t see a future in art. That they’re abandoning their creative passions because of AI,” another illustrator said. A comic artist, writer and painter noted that AI underscores that art is not important to the general public. “It has been demoralizing largely because generated AI images look like crap but there is a segment of the population who seem to not care,” the artist said.

Then there is the unnervingly meta task of artists trying to prove they are human, or that they did not generate their work using AI.

“I find users online to be more critical, looking at art less to enjoy it and more so to figure out if it’s AI generated or not. There’s a lot of pressure and anxiety in proving you are a real person now,” one illustrator and designer said. Another artist and sculptor said, “I have seen false accusations for use of AI in work from other artists who do not use AI and I am fearful of being accused of this as well, I now record the creation process of most things so that I have proof AI was not utilized.”

This study affirms the findings of a less formal ongoing survey conducted by Brian Merchant, a former Times technology columnist who now writes an indispensable newsletter on Substack called “Blood in the Machine,” which keeps razor-sharp track of the ways AI is affecting labor, and the pattern of Big Tech deflecting responsibility for harm. As part of an ongoing series titled, “AI Killed My Job,” Merchant invited visual artists to write to him about their experiences, and published the most compelling — and crushing — responses.

In that column, Merchant discusses the “good enough” principle of AI-generated art, noting, “Creative workers aren’t typically worried that AI systems are so good they’ll be rendered obsolete as artists, or that AI-generated work will be better than theirs. Their fear is that clients, managers, and even consumers will deem AI art ‘good enough’ as the companies that produce it push down their wages and corrode their ability to earn a living.”

An idea highlighted in the following letter published by Merchant from an anonymous source:

“I’ve been out of work for a while now. I made children’s book illustrations, stock art, and took various art commissions.

Now I have several maxed out credit cards and use a donation bin for food. I haven’t had a steady contract in over a year. two weeks ago, when a client who has switched to AI found out about this he gave me $50 out of ‘a sense of guilt.’ Basically pity for the fact that Illustrator, as a job, does not exist anymore.”

One thing Merchant is exceedingly good at is reminding readers that there is a surge of dissent swelling from the proletariat — and that after you’re done feeling the necessary despair, you can join the anti-AI resistance. For visual artists that can be as simple as utilizing a growing number of defensive tools when it comes to protecting art, most notably Glaze and Nightshade. The former adds the smallest pixel-sized changes to your artwork, which serves to confuse AI so it can’t train on your style; the latter — as the name implies — acts more like a poison that corrupts AI training data so it can’t scrape from a protected image.

I’m Arts editor — and proud Luddite — Jessica Gelt. This is your arts and culture news for the week.

The week ahead: A curated calendar

FRIDAY

Celeste Butler-Clayton as Coretta Scott King in “Experiencing the Dream: The MLK Musical.”

(Triple T Photography)

Experiencing the Dream: MLK the Musical
The show’s 26 songs will be recorded live with an orchestra of 27 musicians under the direction of Leon Lacy, with orchestrations by Felipe Paccagnella, vocal arrangements by Tony Jones and musical direction by arranger/producer William Taylor. The cast includes Eric Dawkins, Bishop Jonathan Mason, Yolanda Gibbons, Patricia Jackson, James Singleton, Melvin Crispell, Pam Blackmon Kendle and Celeste Butler-Clayton. Written by Kesha L. Ealy and Marcus S. Mason. Mason also composed the music.
7 p.m. Greater Emmanuel Temple, 3740 E. Imperial Hwy., Lynwood. MLKthemusical.com

Riverdance 30 — The New Generation
The Irish music and dance phenomenon marks its three decades with a special anniversary tour.
7:30 p.m. Friday; 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday; 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sunday. Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. scfta.org

SATURDAY

Ryuichi Sakamoto, left; Bang on a Can All-Stars.

(The Wallis)

Ryuichi Sakamoto
Contemporary music sextet Bang on a Can All-Stars pay tribute to the Japanese composer with works from his album “1996,” which included pieces from his film scores, including “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence” (1983), “The Last Emperor” (1987), for which he won an Academy Award, “The Sheltering Sky” (1990) and “Little Buddha” (1993).
7:30 p.m. The Wallis, 9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills. thewallis.org

Vijay Iyer and Wadada Leo Smith
The longtime collaborators perform music from their 2025 album “Defiant Life” which Iyer noted “was shaped by our ongoing sorrow and outrage over the past year’s cruelties, but also by our faith in human possibility.”
8 p.m. UCLA Nimoy Theater, 1262 Westwood Blvd. cap.ucla.edu

Radiance + Reverie
Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra music director Jaime Martín leads the group in Mozart’s “Haffner” Symphony, “Selah,” a world premiere of a new Double Concerto by Christopher Cerrone performed by violinist Anthony Marwood and cellist Coleman Itzkoff, and Tchaikovsky’s “Mozartiana.”
7:30 p.m. Saturday. Zipper Hall, 200 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A.; 4 p.m. Sunday. The Wallis, 9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills. laco.org

Mads Mikkelsen and Zlatko Burić in ‘Pusher II: With Blood on My Hands.”

(Jens Juncker-Jensen / NWR / Magnolia Pictures )

Pusher trilogy
Danish filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn’s gritty triptych takes us through the violent criminal underworld of Copenhagen in three interconnected films, each with a different protagonist: “Pusher” (1996), starring Kim Bodnia; “Pusher II: With Blood On My Hands” (2004), starring Mads Mikkelsen; “Pusher III: I’m The Angel Of Death,” starring Zlatko Burić.
5 p.m. Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Blvd. americancinematheque.com

Jodi Siegel
The singer-songwriter and guitarist is joined by guitarist Greg Porée and percussionist Justin Porée for an evening of blues, R&B, soul and jazz.
8 p.m. Sierra Madre Playhouse, Sierra Madre Playhouse, 87 W. Sierra Madre Blvd. sierramadreplayhouse.org

SUNDAY
Celebrating Photography
The Getty has a series of events inspired by the exhibition “Photography and the Black Arts Movement, 1955–1985” (which continues through June 14). It begins Sunday with a free, daylong Family Festival featuring live music, dance, storytelling and interactive workshops. On Wednesday evening, moderator Karen Grigsby Bates and authors Dr. Karin L. Stanford and Mark Speltz discuss the new book “Marching West: The Los Angeles Civil Rights Movement in Photographs.” Thursday morning, the panel “Backstage: An Unfurling of the JPC: Black Photography & Visual Culture” examines how the Johnson Publishing Company and its photographers impacted Black visual culture and the larger field of photography. Finally, on June 7, authors Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe (“Viewfinders: Black Women Photographers”) and Deborah Willis (“Black Photographers, 1840 to 1940: An Illustrated Bio-Bibliography”) discuss their work as artists and historians.
Family Festival, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday; “Backstage: An Unfurling of the JPC,” 10 a.m. Thursday (also online); “Marching West,” 7 p.m. Wednesday (also online); “Viewfinders,” 4 p.m. June 7 (also online). Getty Center, 1200 Getty Center Drive, L.A. getty.edu

F For Fake
A 35 mm screening of Orson Welles’ 1973 enigmatic docudrama profiles professional art forger Elmyr de Hory as a starting point for examining authenticity and authorship.
6 p.m. Brain-Dead Studios, 611 N. Fairfax Ave. studios.wearebraindead.com

Philip Glass and the Poets
The first major Philip Glass 90th birthday celebration (he was born Jan. 31, 1927) features Timo Andres on piano and spoken word performance by Taylor Mac, with special guest appearances by Lucinda Childs and the San Francisco Girls Chorus and their artistic director Valérie Sainte-Agathe.
7 p.m. UC Santa Barbara, Campbell Hall. artsandlectures.ucsb.edu

TUESDAY

Gustavo Dudamel will lead the L.A. Phil in Wagner’s “Die Walküre” in three parts, Tuessday-Sunday at Disney Concert Hall.

(Etienne Laurent / For The Times)

Die Walküre
Conductor Gustavo Dudamel and the L.A. Phil, along with director Alberto Arvelo, tackle the second installment in Wagner’s epic Ring Cycle in three stand-alone parts with opera stars Jamez McCorkle, Jessica Faselt, Christine Goerke and Ryan Speedo Green, and scenic designs by Frank Gehry.
Act I, 8 p.m. Tuesday and Friday; Act II, 8 p.m. Wednesday and Saturday; Act II, 8 p.m. Thursday and 2 p.m. Sunday. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com

WEDNESDAY
Being There
Peter Sellers received an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of a simple gardener catapulted into the media spotlight and presidential politics in Hal Ashby’s prescient 1979 satire. Shirley MacLaine, Jack Warden and Melvyn Douglas co-star. Screening in 35 mm with an appearance by cinematographer Caleb Deschanel.
7:30 p.m. Academy Museum, 6067 Wilshire Blvd. academymuseum.org

Life of Mozart
The Pasadena Choral Society presents the composer’s unfinished “Requiem” within a dramatic framework using Mozart’s own words. Milo Brody plays Mozart, accompanied by pianist Tali Tadmor, with solos by soprano Erika Boychenko, alto Ali Frazzini, tenor Eric Wernerand bass Chris Tickner.
7:30 p.m. San Marino Community Church, 1750 Virginia Rd #0412. givebutter.com/lifeofmozart

Primary Trust
Times theater critic Charles McNulty described Eboni Booth’s 2024 Pulitzer Prize-winning play as “a quirky, small-scale, quietly reflective work that’s as tenderhearted as it is spryly comic and as poignant as it is ultimately uplifting,” when it had its West Coast premiere at La Jolla Playhouse. Once again directed by Knud Adams, it arrives in Los Angeles with a cast that includes Ugo Chukwu, Rebecca S’manga Frank, Petey McGee and James Urbaniak, with music by Luke Wygodny.
Through June 28 Mark Taper Forum, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. centertheatregroup.org

Studio installation view from “A Palace in Time” at the Skirball beginning May 20.

(Courtesy of Robert Russell and Lisa Edelstein.)

Skirball Spring Exhibitions
The Skirball Cultural Center launches three new exhibitions next week: “Inventing America: The Comic Book Revolution”; “Outsiders, Outcasts, Rebels + Weirdos: Punk Culture 1976–1986”; and “Robert Russell and Lisa Edelstein: A Palace in Time.” All three open May 20, Skirball Cultural Center, 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles. skirball.org

THURSDAY

Ain’t Misbehavin’
Grammy Award-winning artist Ledisi headlines this Ebony Repertory Theatre production, in association with Fig Street Films, of the Tony Award-winning revue, a tribute to the music of Fats Waller. Directed by Wren T. Brown, with choreography by Dominique Kelley and music direction by William Foster McDaniel. Chester Gregory, Connie Jackson, Marty Austin Lamar and Natalie Wachen co-star.
May 21 through June 8. Nate Holden Performing Arts Center, 4718 W. Washington Blvd. L.A. ebony rep.org.

Arts anywhere

New and recent releases of arts-related media.

Shaina Taub, Jenna Bainbridge and the cast of “Suffs” during the 77th Annual Tony Awards in 2024.

(Theo Wargo / Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions)

Suffs
When the national tour of Shaina Taub’s musical about the suffragette movement marched through the Hollywood Pantages last fall, Times theater critic Charles McNulty wrote that it “is as informative as it is uplifting. It is above all a moving testament to the power of sisterhood. The struggle for equality continues to face crushing setbacks today, but Taub wants us to remember what can happen when people stand united for a just cause.” Captured on Broadway in December 2024, “Suffs,” starring Taub, who also wrote the book, music and lyrics for the show, debuted on PBS’ “Great Performances” earlier this month and is streaming online until the end of July. pbs.org

— Kevin Crust

Culture news and the SoCal scene

Johnie’s Coffee Shop in Los Angeles May 8.

(Ariana Drehsler / For The Times)

Artist Gary Baseman staged his first hometown show in more than a decade at the long-shuttered, but still iconic Johnie’s Coffee Shop along Miracle Mile on Wilshire Blvd. The Googie-style structure opened its doors for the exhibit, which featured a variety of Baseman’s drawings on menus from L.A.-area restaurants.

The critic Rex Reed died this week at the age of 87 and Times theater critic Charles McNulty wrote an appreciation of the often acerbic provocateur. “He didn’t mince words or allow nuance or second thoughts to stand in the way of a zingy phrase or a colorful wisecrack. Unbridled opinion was his stock-in-trade,” McNulty wrote.

McNulty also weighed in with a review of a revival of Eugène Ionesco’s “Exit the King,” directed by Michael Michetti at A Noise Within. Ionesco, a Romanian-born French playwright, is one of the pillars of the Theatre of the Absurd, McNulty writes, adding, “The existential philosophy of Camus and Sartre, self-evident truths for these absurdist writers, is conveyed less through the content than through the style of their plays. Language is no longer a means of communication but a mark of the unbridgeable distance between human beings.”

People play a satirical video game installation titled “Operation Epic Furious Strait to Hell,” created by guerrilla art group Secret Handshake.

(Heather Diehl / Getty Images)

You can order a Diet Coke, or bomb Iran in a new video game about the Iran war called “Operation Epic Furious: Strait to Hell,” which was installed near the National Mall in Washington, D.C. by the anonymous arts activist group Secret Handshake. For the past year and a half the group has secured permits to erect an ongoing series of satirical public sculptures — mostly about President Trump’s alleged ties to convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein — on and around the National Mall. This is the group’s first foray into video games.

Times classical music critic Mark Swed devoted a recent column to the genius of the American theater director, playwright and performer Robert Wilson, who died last year at the age of 83. “So far this year, there have been, or will be through the end of June, major Wilson opera and theater productions in Moscow; Paris; Ljubljana, Slovenia; Düsseldorf, Germany; Adelaide, Australia; Kaunas, Lithuania; Vienna; Rome; Tokyo; Luxembourg City, Luxembourg; Berlin; Riga, Latvia; and Sophia, Bulgaria. That is to say, pretty much Wilson business as usual,” Swed writes, before examining two new performances of Wilson’s work in Brooklyn and Houston.

Artist Todd Gray stands in front of his work inside the Wilshire/La Cienega Metro Station on May 1 in Los Angeles.

(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)

Iris Kwok marked the opening of L.A. Metro’s new D Line extension by profiling four of the artists behind the public artwork in three new stations. Nine artists in total worked on site-specific installations: Mariana Castillo Deball, Eamon Ore-Giron, Ken Gonzales-Day, Todd Gray, Karl Haendel, Soo Kim, Fran Siegel, Susan Silton and Mark Dean Veca.

Julius Miller broke the news that a series of seven digital billboards promoting peace will go up across the city as part of the Broad Museum’s upcoming exhibit, “Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind,” which opens May 23. The billboards arrive nearly 57 years after Ono and John Lennon “erected a billboard near the Chateau Marmont emblazoned with the words, “WAR IS OVER! If You Want It.”

Culver City’s Wende Museum of the Cold War announced it will build a $16-million expansion in Hawthorne. It plans to transform a newly purchased Midcentury Modern building into a research institute and interactive storage facility for its collections — “a ‘living archive,’ as it’s calling the facility,” writes Deborah Vankin. The opening is currently set for 2028.

Alvin Ailey’s American Dance Theatre’s Chalvar Montei leaps for the stars. The troupe will perform as part of the Glorya Kaufman Presents Dance at the Music Center.

(Dario Calmese / Courtesy La Jolla Music Society
)

The Music Center announced its lineup this week for the 2026–27 season of Glorya Kaufman Presents Dance at the Music Center. Highlights include the Joffrey Ballet’s West Coast premiere of “The Sleeping Beauty,” Compañía Nacional de Danza’s North American premiere of “Don Quixote,” and the Los Angeles premiere of a Jerome Robbins ballet festival curated by Tiler Peck. Alvin Ailey Dance Theater is also part of the lineup, and choreographer Sonya Tayeh will unveil an L.A. premiere set to the music of Sinéad O’Connor.

The Los Angeles Philharmonic has announced the 2026 summer season at the Ford. The open-air venue across from the Hollywood Bowl is now in its seventh season under LA Phil leadership, and shows are set to run through Oct. 31. Grab your picnic basket and select a date from a wide variety of shows including dance, music and film. Stand-out acts include Bilal and DJ Rashida, Matteo Bocelli, Jacob Collier, Judy Collins and Bruce Cockburn, Ani DiFranco and Valerie June, Helado Negro and Reyna Tropical, Joe Hisaishi, Iron & Wine, the L.A. Phil, and Punch Brothers.

The Institute of Latino Art has opened in Pomona, with a grand opening reception scheduled for June 13. Occupying the former Latino Art Museum space, the new gallery was founded by artist Oscar Magallanes. A news release notes, “ILA represents a new artist-led institution in the Inland Empire, working to connect regional communities with contemporary Latin American and Chicano art. The inaugural exhibition, ‘Reclamation: Art in Contested Spaces,’ features NSRGNTS, Lapiztola, and Rubén Ortiz-Torres.”

— Jessica Gelt

And last but not least

Times columnist Mary McNamara went to Yorkshire and wrote that it was the bucket-list literary trip of her dreams. Mine too!

Visitors to one Italian destination say it’s “incredible”, but it was once a place shunned by many

Italy is a beautiful country with each province very different from the next – and each Italian area has its own identity and culture. While holidaymakers typically flock to the Amalfi Coast, cities such as Florence or Rome or Lake Garda or Lake Como, there’s a lesser-known spot that has left visitors speechless with delight.

Once famous for being the ‘shame of Italy’, Matera, a city based high on a rocktop in the southern Basilicata is now a luxurious tourist getaway. Here, a collection of old cave dwellings forged into the mountains in an area called Sassi offer a peaceful inland holiday infused with history.

The cave dwellings were evacuated by the Italian government in the 1950s, hailed as slums at the time with poor living conditions. Thousands of residents were transferred into modern housing and Prime Minister Alcide De Gasperi, of the time, described Matera as a “national disgrace”.

It’s likely that not all the locals wanted to leave their Matera homes at the time, but the spot was deemed a health hazard with no ample sewage system or electricity – and it was poverty-stricken.

One former Matera resident once described living conditions as “brutal,” with “families of maybe nine or 10 children, sleeping next to mules and pigs”.

“We were dying of hunger”, said Luigi Plasmati recalling his family’s life in Matera several years ago, when he was 89-years-old.

These days things have really turned around – and several Airbnb cave-style accommodation stays are described as “exceptional” by those who visit.

Sassi di Matera covers two districts, with the city of Matera situated on a mountain top.

One TripAdvisor review by a guest staying in Pietragialla, which looks across to the city of Matera, described their cave stay as an “incredible experience”.

The cave stay reviewer wrote: “I am speechless for how good we felt. It was an incredible experience and everything was unbelievable. The room is fantastic. The bathroom is the best bathroom I’ve ever been and the bath tub is from another planet. But the most incredible thing is the silence.”

The visitor went on to describe “pure sleep” they experienced in the cave due to the peacefulness and darkness as the cave has “no windows”.

Breakfast, they went on, was already prepared the previous night so you “can have it at any time” and it included fresh fruit, juices, marmalades, fresh local bread, almonds and even almond milk.

The TripAdvisor reviewer added: “Once you leave the room you have in front of you the whole city centre, it looks like a fairy tale. Pietragialla is an experience that needs to be done once in life at least.”

The Sassi district boasts museums such as the Cave House in the Sassi of Matera, which show visitors what peasant life was like in the region just a few decades ago.

There are also churches made of rock that date back to the 13th-century, with St. Lucia alle Malve (a Catholic church in Matera) being described as the “most beautiful” with its ancient mosaics dating back centuries.

ATLANTA — Same fight. New generation.

That’s the mantra of a multiracial group of civil rights leaders and activists organizing opposition to a mostly white conservative alliance dismantling the Voting Rights Act and political districts that allowed Black and other nonwhite voters to choose more of their elected leaders for the last half-century.

“We have to respond as quickly as possible,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson said in an interview. “The real question,” Johnson told the Associated Press, “is how do we as a country really address the effort to shrink us backwards into a 1950s reality?”

Johnson’s 117-year-old association, which was at the forefront of legal and legislative fights for Black political rights in the 20th century, is among scores of groups coming together Saturday in Alabama for a rally and tribute to the Civil Rights Movement that helped bring about the 1965 Voting Rights Act. They plan events in Selma, where voting rights advocates were attacked by white law enforcement officers on Bloody Sunday, and Montgomery, where a rescheduled march concluded two weeks later.

Unlike 61 years ago, the Alabama events are not the pinnacle of a protracted movement. Instead, civil rights activists hope they serve as a catalyst for a renewed crusade after the U.S. Supreme Court, two weeks ago, further weakened the VRA by no longer allowing race to be considered in how congressional and other districts are drawn.

They acknowledge difficulty in countering a white-dominated conservative network entrenched in the White House, Capitol Hill, federal courts and many state legislatures of the Old Confederacy, where a majority of Black Americans still live.

The VRA “was the foundational nucleus of the Civil Rights Movement,” said Jared Evans of the Louisiana-based Power Coalition for Equity and Justice. “They’ve taken that from us,” he said, with the recent Louisiana v. Callais decision on congressional districts and the earlier Shelby v. Holder decision in 2013 that rolled back federal oversight of election procedures in states and localities with a history of discrimination.

Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock, who is senior pastor of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. once preached, said from his pulpit that the result is “Jim Crow in new clothes.”

Warnock pointed to King and the last voting rights movement. “We need political power. We need economic power. We need personal power,” he said, assuring parishioners that “your adversaries know that your voice matters” because they’re “bending over backwards” to diminish it.

Evans reached further back into history to say what must happen next.

“Our response must be and will be a second Reconstruction period,” Evans said.

Some Democrats want an answer from Congress

The ultimate goal, organizers said, is to win more elections, sway policy fights and protect diverse political representation at all levels.

U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell, a Black lawmaker who represents Selma, Alabama, said an immediate priority is to “reform and reintroduce” Democrats’ flagship voting bill, the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act.

Sewell, whose seat ultimately could be threatened under redistricting, said Democrats want to “completely” eliminate partisan gerrymandering.

She also said the legislation would “bring back pre-clearance,” the requirement for certain federal approvals that the court struck down in Shelby.

“We need to come up with a modern-day formula for showing just how egregious the behavior of these state actors is,” Sewell said.

The Supreme Court ruled in Callais that states do not have to draw majority nonwhite districts under the Voting Rights Act and, in fact, should not consider race at all when drawing boundaries. By arguing that the law’s remedies to combat discrimination had themselves become racist, the decision allows states to redraw heavily Black districts that have historically elected Democrats while arguing that the designs are based on party interests, not race.

President Trump praised the decision as “a BIG WIN for Equal Protection under the Law, as it returns the Voting Rights Act to its Original Intent, which was to protect against intentional Racial Discrimination.”

Groups mobilized for redistricting sessions

Many of the same groups who’ll be in Alabama on Saturday have already gone to Southern statehouses, where white Republican lawmakers moved swiftly to redraw congressional districts after Callais.

Alabama and Louisiana lawmakers reverted to a single majority-Black district, each scrapping a second district that had been ordered by lower federal courts under now-reversed VRA interpretations. Tennessee lawmakers gutted a majority Black district by splitting greater Memphis into three different sprawling districts — itself an obvious racial gerrymander the court had previously forbidden, Evans said.

Anticipating the Callais outcome, Florida and Texas proceeded with redistricting before it came down. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a term-limited Republican, has called a June session to redraw congressional lines for the 2028 cycle. Mississippi and South Carolina have delayed the matter for now.

South Carolina state Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey was among the few white Republicans who pushed back against GOP redistricting plans. He said that not even pressure from Trump could sell him on disenfranchising Black South Carolinians instead of doing what’s best for his state.

Other white conservatives are still talking openly about ousting Reps. Jim Clyburn and Bennie Thompson, the only Black U.S. House members from South Carolina and Mississippi, respectively.

Evans, the Louisiana activist, predicted the fight ahead won’t just be about congressional representation.

“Look for them to go after state house and state senate seats — and then it will be the local level,” he said, adding that “it’s going to be an entire erasure of Black representation.”

The issue is more than a partisan Washington fight

Heavily minority districts drawn under the VRA before Callais nearly always elect Democrats. Black Americans have overwhelmingly aligned with the party since President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act, sparking a decades-long migration of most white Southern politicians to the Republicans. Latino and Hispanic voters still lean Democratic in most places as well.

The immediate fight shapes the midterm campaign scramble for control of the U.S. House during the final years of Trump’s presidency. Trump initially pushed Republican-run states to redistrict to protect the party’s fragile House majority.

But Johnson, the NAACP leader, said all voters should see more than partisan warfare or a regional battle over race.

Beyond party allegiance, Johnson argued, white conservatives want to curtail a range of rights “depending on how you pray, depending on who you love,” while also pushing economic policies that punish workers across racial and ethnic lines. From legislation to the confirmation of federal judges who decide constitutional questions, those policy outcomes start with election results.

“It’s not a Black problem,” Johnson said. “That’s an American problem.”

There is no singular movement or leader yet

Evans, Johnson and others acknowledged the complexity in harnessing disparate organizations and galvanizing voters on issues like redistricting and gerrymandering. But they insist the brazen nature of Republicans’ course has spurred engagement.

Johnson said he was on an organizing call in Mississippi this week that had 8,000 participants. Evans pointed to packed hallways in the state Capitols in Baton Rouge and Nashville, respectively.

The NAACP and allies have challenged new maps in multiple states, despite Callais. Many groups want to spur midterm turnout among Black voters, and others are disenchanted with white conservatives’ maneuvers in racially diverse places.

Johnson stressed the need for perseverance.

The 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision was seismic, with a unanimous court declaring segregated public schools unconstitutional and reversing 19th-century precedents denying Black Americans’ fundamental rights.

But it took 17 years — and many more court battles — for it to be implemented in most Southern school districts. Fights over mandated student busing continued beyond the South. It was a decade after Brown before Congress and Johnson enacted the movement’s seminal laws.

There’s no clear leader of a modern movement.

Johnson said it’s worth remembering that even with King at the helm before his assassination, “there was tension around strategy” in the 1950s and 1960s.

But even “through that tension, through many episodes, we were able to get directly in the right place.”

Barrow and Brown write for the Associated Press.

During this tournament, she has been able to lean on Meg Jones a little more to lift her mood.

Like the new England skipper, Packer was born and raised in Wales. The pair will occasionally swap a word or two of Welsh, a reminder of home and family.

“We have just some funny phrases that no-one else really understands, but it really makes us laugh,” says Packer.

“She’s very good at making things quite light and I’m probably the opposite – I make it quite serious.”

There is plenty to be serious about when they face France in Bordeaux.

Given England’s home run at the 2025 Rugby World Cup, WXV’s sparse crowds and an expected record attendance at the 42,000-capacity Stade Atlantique, it is likely to be the most hostile environment the Red Roses have played in since that fateful defeat in Eden Park in 2022.

The streak of 37 straight wins England have put together since is in definite peril.

But, beyond her notes and focus points, there is something else, less easily defined, that bolsters Packer amid the stress.

“As a team we are all overly critical of ourselves, but there is a bond that’s really important to us,” she says.

“The biggest thing is how tight we are as a group – and that just really carries us through.”

Packer, her team and that togetherness will be tested.

But the scrum-half, book smart, street smart and quick smart at the breakdown, can pass most things.